I couldn’t fucking breathe.
I hated myself for destroying him.
“We have to let each other go. It’s what’s best for our family.”
“You leaving is not what’s best for our family, and you know it!”
“Stop screaming at me! I’m hurting too! You broke me! Can’t you see that?”
“So this last month was what, Autumn? Fucking payback?”
“Of course not.”
“Bullshit!”
“You left me! After you fucked me over!”
—Julian—
My resolve broke like a chain that had been stretched to the max. I heard it snap, loud and clear. With wide eyes, I ran my hands through my hair, wanting to tear it out. Trying to remain calm but becoming defeated with each passing second.
I couldn’t keep up with the torment—it clasped onto me like a vice as I stormed around my office, my feet stomping everywhere I stepped, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. Throwing anything and everything I could find, I unleashed my fury on my office instead of her.
“Julian, stop!”
Hearing the desperation in Autumn’s voice halted the chaos coursing through my veins. Neither one of us said a word for I don’t know how long, facing each other, panting profusely. We didn’t need to, though. Our eyes spoke for themselves.
Our connection was present, and she wanted me to see it, giving me the hope I needed to go on. I growled out my frustration, releasing the craze, the wrath I no longer had any control over. It pounded into me as furiously as what she’d just admitted.
“I’m hanging on by a thread here. So unless you want to see a side of me you haven’t seen in years, I suggest you weigh your words before you come at me with more bullshit. We’re far from fucking over. Nothing will ever be done between us!”
“Just let me go!”
“I can’t! You belong to me! You always have, and you always will!”
My mind was spiraling with more thoughts and questions, trying to find some clarity. Some truth within the haze. I shut my eyes and bowed my head in between my hands. Needing a minute to process what the hell she’d just said.
She could see it.
Feel it.
She could feel me.
I never wanted to shake her and hold her as much as I did in that moment. Showing my weaknesses wasn’t something I ever did, but it had always been different with Autumn, and she knew it too. I couldn’t think about the future without contemplating the past, and for the first time it had me questioning how we would make it through this.
I stared up at her through the slits of my eyes, longing to feel some sort of connection through what I was about to say to her. “I fucked up! How many more times do I have to say it to you?”
“But that’s always been the problem between us, Julian. You fuck up, and I forgive you. It’s an endless cycle I want to put an end to. I don’t know what you expect from me because the woman you see standing in front of you—you made her this way.”
I jerked back. With each blow she delivered, I felt a little more of myself die inside. I didn’t know which one was worse—her lies or her truths.
“You’re so full of shit,” I confidently countered. The thread I was hanging on to snapped. “You’ve loved me your entire life. I’m embedded in your skin. I’m flowing in your blood. I’m beating in your heart.” Before she knew it, I was standing directly in front of her, pulling her hair away from her face and grazing my knuckles against her rosy cheek. “I’m a part of you, sweetheart, and you’re not going anywhere.” I moved away, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted her to miss my touch before my resolve exploded.
With the way I was feeling right now, I was damn ready to throw her over my shoulder, kicking, screaming, putting up one hell of a fight, and lock her the fuck away until I proved my point and made her mine again.
“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
She turned around to leave, but I gripped onto her arm. “Don’t you walk away from me.” Stepping right into her personal space, I backed her against the nearest wall. My six-foot-two muscular build loomed over her petite frame as I tugged her hard against my chest.
She didn’t cower—if anything she stood taller. I cocked my head to the side, sweeping her hair away from her eyes to stare deep into them as I locked her in place in front of me. Her chest rose and fell with each brush of my hand.
I held her tighter.
To look at me.
See me.
Feel me…
I switched my grip to the back of her neck in a possessive act, running my thumb up and down her windpipe. Her breathing hitched, and her lips parted when my other hand lightly grazed her inner thigh.