I shouldn’t have married her.
I shouldn’t have tried to be a family.
I should have walked away from the beginning.
I shouldn’t have gotten involved with her in the first place.
I was a rich man who had more money than I could spend in a lifetime—but I was still someone’s bitch.
Fourteen
Cleo
After I grabbed my luggage and got into the private car waiting for me, my heart started to race.
A million miles an hour.
I was supposed to go home. It’d been such a long day. It would be nice to slip off my heels and collapse onto the couch, smelling the stench that had started to reek from the flowers. But I was so uneasy, so anxious, that the last thing I wanted to do was go to my apartment. Like a secret I couldn’t keep any longer, I wanted to open the lock in my chest and just let everything out. It was making me sick, staying quiet.
I couldn’t do this anymore.
I texted Deacon. I’m in New York. It was ten in the evening, but I wasn’t sure what time he went to sleep. I imagined he’d stayed awake, waiting for that message to pop up on his phone…because he cared about me.
He texted back. Good. His message was short, not even a full sentence. But it was late, and there was nothing more to say about it.
The driver kept going, and once he reached the fork on the map, to drive to Deacon’s building or mine, I made my decision. “Take me to the Trinity Building, please.”
He turned on the blinker and didn’t question me.
Oh my god, I was really doing this. I texted him. I’m coming to your residence.
His response was immediate. Everything okay?
I just need to talk to you. I cupped my cheeks and felt how warm they were. I imagined they were red, like they’d been exposed to the sun too long. My neck was hot too, like I was wearing a turtleneck sweater with material that irritated the skin. I wasn’t sure how this conversation would go, but I knew it wouldn’t be simple. Deacon was never simple. But I knew it would end the way I wanted…because it was obvious our hearts were both in the same place.
I got into the elevator and rose to the thirty-second floor.
I walked down the hallway and stopped at his front door, staring at the gold numbers on the front like I’d never seen them before. Now my pulse was audible in my ears, thumping like loud bass from a club. “Oh fuck me…” I dug my fingers into my hair and pushed it from my face, more nervous than I’d ever been before. Since he was expecting me, I let myself inside.
He was sitting on the couch in just his sweatpants, his hair a little untidy as if he’d been in bed when I texted him. He lifted his chin and looked up at me, his brown eyes looking me over like I’d be covered in bruises. He rose to his feet, tall and muscular, and then came closer to me, shirtless and powerful. His eyes shifted back and forth as he looked into mine, like he would see the words written there in black ink. “Cleo, is everything alright?”
“Yes, everything’s fine.” Now that our eyes were locked together, I was more nervous. Seeing him in the flesh only reminded me how much I wanted him, how powerful the connection was between our two souls. “I just need to talk to you about something…”
With his arms by his sides, he stared at me, still, patient.
“I…I don’t know where to start.” I’d never struggled to hit on a guy, tell him how I felt, or be the confident woman who handled celebrities every single day. But now, I was a nervous schoolgirl, fidgeting in place, wanting to break eye contact.
Deacon continued his stare, not having blinked since he approached me.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
He tilted his head slightly, like he was confused by what I said.
“I don’t want to be your friend anymore. I don’t want us to spend all this time together as separate people. I want us to be together…romantically, physically, emotionally.” If it were anyone else, I would just kiss him, and every thought in my head would be obvious. But with Deacon, I had to be clear, concise, state everything I wanted because he didn’t make assumptions about other people. He relied on evidence and data. Words were the best way to do that.
He didn’t react. At all.
“I want you, Deacon…” I wanted him to kiss me, to tell me he felt the same way, to do something. “I want you to know how I feel…as if it wasn’t already obvious.” My fingers came together at my waist, the tips pressing into each other as I fidgeted in place, unable to read his thoughts in that stoic expression.