Discipline

Aaron’s jaw flexed. “I don’t need you to make it easy on me.”

“Aaron. Are you willing to give up your job? And not just quietly either — you’d be giving up your job and every last shred of your reputation. Whether it’s because they find out about me or because Ben pulls some sort of stunt, you’re going to be humiliated, Aaron. They won’t let you go quietly. Everything you worked for to make your father so proud will be destroyed completely.” My chest heaved as I glared at him. “Am I worth that to you? Because I want to be selfish, Aaron, trust me, I do. I want to be near you but I care about you too much at this point to let my past haunt you and be the reason that you lose everything.”

I finally pushed away successfully, managing to pace a few yards away before I found him in front of me again.

“Please, just let me leave,” I pleaded, my hands on his chest as I pushed him. He stayed put, his hands at his sides, keeping me in place with his sheer presence alone. “Please, Aaron. If I leave now, everything can still be okay.”

“Baby, just sit down for a second.”

“No. Unless you’re telling me I’m worth all that misery, then let me go.”

He blocked me fro

m the doorway, his broad frame closing me in. “Damn it, Nina, it doesn’t have to be the way you’re describing it.”

“Of course it does.” My voice fell to a whisper mid-sentence as his forehead touched mine. I stepped back but he countered my movements. “Aaron, someone’s going to find out about us eventually. Somehow it’s going to get out. And when it does, either Ben or Woodhill will be after you, so please…”

“Nina.”

“Don’t,” I moaned as his mouth touched mine, still holding that sweet, dizzying effect on me despite the frustration of the moment. “I just want to let you go,” I exhaled miserably, though the last words of my sentence were muffled by his lips.

His hands held my face to his, his thumbs wiping at the tears streaming down my cheeks. I gasped for breath, opening my mouth for his tongue, only faintly hearing the commotion in the distance. I couldn’t process it. There was too much going on. My head was faint, my heart pounding as Aaron backed me into the wall with his intensifying kiss. I couldn’t pull away from him, not even as I heard Adriana’s sharp warning down the hall.

“Hon, just wait a second! Come back here!”

My eyes blinked open, my foggy mind registering the sound of multiple footsteps, rapid as they headed our way.

Suddenly, a voice not belonging to Adriana rang out in my ear.

“Mr. Cole?”

Pulling away from him, my lips swollen, I turned to look at the doorway. Aaron turned with me, both of us freezing as we simply staring.

There stood Kelsey, her red-rimmed eyes wide as she gaped at us.

CHAPTER 17

The apartment was quiet enough to make my ears hurt. Sitting in the living room, I waited for Kelsey to wake up and come out of her room. The restaurant was still closed and I was off all day. She had to come out at some point, and we had to break our silence at some point.

After discovering us in the kitchen last night, she had stood and stared for a few more seconds, her mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. I heard the angry sob escape her throat before she burst into tears, disappearing back down the hallway. Though his hands had tightened around me, I tore away from Aaron, the look I shot him something of fear and regret. I’d told him so. Just a second ago, I had told him that soon her later, we’d be found out.

And by a sobbing Kelsey, of all people.

Ignoring the stares of my coworkers, their friends, my bare feet had run after her, following her out of the house and onto the driveway, where she stopped, realizing she had nowhere to go.

“Kelsey.”

She brought her hands down from her head in fists when she spun to look at me, an unfamiliar rage in her tear-filled eyes.

“Mr. Cole? That’s who you were seeing, Nina?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Kelsey, I didn’t want — ”

“What the fuck! How did this happen? How do these things keeping happening for you? I don’t fucking get it! I don’t — ” Her sentence cut off once she looked over my shoulder. “God, they’re all staring at me out the windows!” she shrieked accusingly.

“I’m sorry!” I tried to wave them away but they stayed, mostly people from the other restaurants. When she ran out into the street, I followed. “Kelsey! Why are you here? What happened?”

“What the fuck do you think happened? Surprise, he wasn’t into me, he was drunk-chatting me, whatever that means, and I didn’t want to fucking stay in the same house as that asshole! And especially not Paige — she’s a bitch!” The sound of Kelsey’s flip-flops slapping against the bottom of her feet echoed in the quiet of the night, reminding me that I was going barefoot, which probably explained the small but cutting pain in my foot. A pebble in my inner heel. “I don’t fucking know why I thought it was a good idea to come here! I should’ve remembered that you don’t give a fuck about other people when you’re with these friends!”