Page 45
“You were there all night?” she questions.
“I don’t think my whereabouts are any of your concern, Penelope.”
“Right, I’m sorry.” The woman smiles warmly at me. “Well, thank you for bringing Xander back, um…”
“Camila,” Xander’s authoritative tone cuts in.
“Camila,” she repeats, but it sounds sour on her tongue.
She opens his door, and Xander gets out, glancing at me one last time before shutting it and making me flinch.
They seem to be deep in conversation as they walk back through the gates, and Xander doesn’t look at me again.
I should’ve known.
He’s a fucking criminal billionaire. He can have any woman he wants. There are probably millions lined up for him.
This feels like jealousy, but it shouldn’t.
Maybe that’s all I am to him. A woman he could fuck and then forget about after. The car was nothing but company courtesy and a few pretty lies out of his mouth.
‘Nothing will ever be too much when it comes to you.’
Thank fuck I didn’t give in to him last night. I’m shutting this situation down.
I grip the steering wheel and pull away from the house. Putting my foot down on the accelerator, I bolt it down the path, leaving clouds of dust behind me.
Chapter 16
Xander
That shot me like a bullet to the gut. Having to brush her off as one of my employees—because of Penelope—sent a surge of rage through me like no other.
She stood at that gate, waiting for me like a lost fucking puppy. And I watched as Camila sped off down the path, wanting nothing more than to chase after her. In the pissing rain, on foot if I had to.
But, alas, there’s work that needs my attention.
Like Max and the information he has.
I saw the flash of jealousy in Penelope’s eyes.
There’s nothing keeping my complete obsession with Camila at bay, and if Jac was to ever find out, he’d take her from me. No amount of tablets shoved down my throat will help the rewired chemistry in my brain at one simple thought of her. Which is why, as much as I want to go back to watching her flit about her living room from the bonnet of her car, I have to show face. Act like everything’s normal. When the simple fact is, it isn’t normal. Especially not when I can feel that as much as she tries to stay away from me, push me away, she still wants to be near me.
She wants me. As much as she denies it, she wants me. She can’t resist our inevitable pull.
Little does she know that I’ve trapped her now. Her little speeding-off act did nothing but make me eager to get my hands on her again.
There’s a little voice—deep, deep in my subconscious—begging, screaming at me to take my medication. That this isn’t the way this is supposed to go. But what my subconscious doesn’t realise is that even if I did take my meds, it can’t undo what’s already done. Camila spends far too long in my head. When I try to sleep, she’s there. When I close my eyes, her face and those unbothered, viridian eyes liquidate the darkness that smothers my brain like thick oil whenever I’m not in her proximity, until all I can think about is her and how I would kill to have her by my side every single minute of the day.
Kill. Because I’d kill any fucker that tried to get in the way of me and her. And my little Angel has secrets she hasn’t shared with me yet.
Right now, I need to focus on acting like nothing is happening. So, I force my legs to move through the marble halls of the office wing, all the while her panting breaths echo in my mind.
As if it wasn’t enough that she wears green every night at the club, her eyes also happen to be green. A colour that I’ve tried so hard for years to ignore. When we bought the estate, we had the trees removed and cherry blossoms planted. I needed to minimise the green surrounding the grounds. Every time I looked at that colour, it resurfaced fear that I’ve buried deep down inside me and cemented over.
Until her.
Whenever I look at her, it’s not fear that I feel. It’s the ferocious need to keep her safe, to not let her out of my sight—easier said than done without looking absolutely insane standing outside of her window all hours of the day or literally bending her to my will.
