Page 321 of Now and Forever

Chapter 118

Callum

Stella didn’t bother replying and all afternoon I was plagued by images of her.

It was the first time I had admitted to her that I missed her, and yet, the tenacious woman decided to ignore it. I wasn’t sure if I was in awe or furious at her. I suppose I was a combination of both. I had to give it to Stella, though, by her not responding to that consequential message, it made me want to seek her out.

“Callum?”

“Yes, Zara?” I asked, glancing at her a bit.

She had insisted on cooking me dinner, so she was already here when I got back from work, chopping and humming her way in the kitchen.

Dinner was great, but she chatted my ear off and I needed a reprieve. With a bottle in hand, I strode towards the garden outside, needing some fresh air.

However here she was again, following me. I had avoided heavy discussions about the future since I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go, but I suppose Zara was adamant.

It started when my father died of a heart attack. Two hours later, Zara was on a mission to inject every single memory we had as a couple back into my life. My father was had just been declared dead, but she was already pestering me then about our future together.

“You look deep in thought.” She smiled, pressing her hands on my chest.

As I looked down on her, I remembered the same look she had back in the day, one where she vowed to love me. “Thinking is what I do. Money makes money, but money doesn’t just sprout without formulated ideas.”

It was a good excuse because, well, I used to think about business all the time, yet now, Stella had dominated my mind. After last night’s dream, I woke up, reaching out across the bed for her, but it was empty. Sleep evaded me afterwards, however Stella remained.

Knowing that she was out on a dinner date with her ex didn’t help my uneasiness. When my mind wandered to the subject of her letting another man touch her, I wanted to commit murder.

“We aren’t getting any younger.” Zara was onto her usual self. Couldn’t she give me a break? Hell, she was becoming such a nuisance. Zara pressed harder against me, lips slowly creeping towards mine. “We could be together now. No one is stopping us.”

No, no one was stopping us, that’s for sure. Although, Stella had been in my head and it seemed like her memory wasn’t going away. It was plaguing me and I wasn’t sure where to go from here.

Being around Zara again reminded me a lot of all the good things we had shared before, but try as she might, it didn’t feel the same. There was something off; I couldn’t pinpoint it really, but it was bothersome. A part of me wanted to capture what we’d had before, however the fireworks we once shared were now a mere sparkle of what we’d had in the past.

Zara used her hand to guide my face to look at her. “We can get married now. It was what you always wanted.”

That was before… Stella.

Now, things have changed.

“I don’t love you the way I used to, Zara. I’m not saying this to hurt you or to be mean because of the past; I’m simply telling you the truth. My mind is bombarded with Stella lately.” That certainly made Zara scrutinize me in a different light.

“But what you had with Stella was sex. What more is there?”

Was it just sex? It was the greatest sex I’d ever had. Merely thinking about how great the sex was had already got my blood running south…

Stella.

She was a mixture of ethereal beauty and spitfire vivaciousness. Add her extraordinary cunt into the equation and then it was a double-edged sword; any mortal man’s Achilles’ heel.

“Stella’s my wife, that’s what’s more, Zara,” I directed at the woman who used to make me kneel at her feet.

“Wife?” she choked out. “I thought she was just a fuck?” She gripped me harder. “Are you in love with her?”

Zara looked like she was in a great deal of pain. I still loved her, I knew that much, but it wasn’t the same. My body didn’t rattle the way it used to. My heart didn’t beat as wildly as it once had. She used to take my breath away… yet now, I realized that they were memories that could never be rekindled or relived again.

I wanted to be cruel, be that bastard who made her cry and crush her heart the way she had mine, but for some reason, I desired to come clean more. Maybe all this heartache and pain would ease out of my conscience if we freely discussed this now. I suppose, this moment was as good as any other.

So I started with Richard and his plea.

---