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A Game Of Temptation 42
LAURAAlex stared at me quietly, waiting for me to continue. He was confused, I could tell from the from lines between his brows, but he didn't ask any questions or push me to go on. He just waited patiently and I appreciated it. I was about to confess to him something that I'd never told anyone. If I did it under pressure, then I was either going to lie or not do it at all. And I needed to do this. For him and for me. "My father left when I was eight. Or at least so I was told by my mom," I said, swallowing hard. My voice shook and something kept telling me to stop this madness, to turn away and walk upstairs, knowing that Alex wouldn't force me if I didn't really want to. I ignored it and continued. "At eight, you'd think I would remember him but I don't. I have not one single memory of him. The only person I remember when I was that young, was a man who was married to my mother for a long time."Memories from the past assaulted me and instead of shutting them out, I let myself
A Game Of Temptation 43
LAURA When I woke up the next morning, it was to the sight of two green eyes staring at me. Because I hadn't been expecting it—because I was so used to waking up alone everyday—it freaked me out and I screamed. I drew back with so much force that I slipped off the bed and landed on the floor."Ow," I groaned and rubbed the back of my head where it had smacked against the floor from my fall. "Shit. Sorry," a familiar voice said before an equally familiar face appeared from the side of the bed.Ladies and gentlemen, the owner of the pair of green eyes. For a moment, all I could do was stare. Stare at his spectacular face, his perfectly chiseled jaw, the hint of stubble that had just begun to form, his lips that I'd spent so much time kissing last night, and those beautiful beautiful green eyes. "You scared me." The words came out breathy and weightless, and I flushed because he'd heard it. Flustered. I was flustered. "I'm sorry," he said absently.His eyes roved over my face, touc
A Game Of Temptation 44
LAURA Alex's eyes followed me as I dashed into the bathroom.I didn't come with anything since I hadn't planned on spending the night so I pumped his body wash onto my palm and lathered my body. Less than seven minutes later, I was hurrying out of the shower. As I dried off, I thought about how much time I was going to burn in going to my place, changing, then finally going to work. If only I could go directly from here. It would save time, yes, but then I didn't have appropriate work attire. Again, because I hadn't known I would be spending the night. I wrapped a second towel over my hair and walked out of the bathroom. When I got back into the room, Alex was lying back on the bed like a king, arms under his head with his legs slightly spread. Get this, he was totally naked and wasn't making any efforts to cover himself. And. He. Was. Sporting. Wood. Did this man not care for my sanity at all?"Cover yourself up," I told him, making deliberate efforts to keep my eyes averted as
A Game Of Temptation 45
LAURA Beep.Beep.Beep. That was all I kept hearing. The sound wouldn't fucking leave my head.I tried to open my eyes, but they remained firmly shut. My lids felt like two lead weights and lifting them felt like a herculean task. When I finally did, I must have been looking straight at the sun because it was so bright, I winced and shut them immediately. The second time when I opened them, I did so slowly, and that was when I realized that I hadn't been staring at the sun. The room I was in was bright, painted with white all round, but it shouldn't have hurt my eyes like that.The fact that it had meant only one thing; My eyes had been closed for a very long time. Swallowing past a painfully dry throat, I looked around. There were machines connected to my body and the steady beep I'd been hearing was from one of them. The room...The machines...I was in a hospital. What the hell was I doing in a hospital?Bracing my hands on the pillow, I made to sit up on the bed, only for me t
A Game Of Temptation Author's Note.
I honestly do not know where to start from. But as my friend would say, start from anywhere. I feel like a total ass for leaving this book unupdated for so long but the thing is, school has been after my life. I can't even begin to explain how hectic things have been. On some days when I get back home just when it's starting to get dark, I fall face down on my bed without even eating and wake up the next day for a repeat. There's no time to focus on myself, not to talk about my books and it's crazy because I thought I'd be able to update at least a chapter a week but I've not been able to. And I kept meaning to update a chapter where I would attach a message to let you guys in on what was going on but I never got the chance to. Now that it's looking like I may never get to, I've decided to just send out a message. I hope that I have not lost all my readers and I hope I'll still have you all here when I get back to writing this book because I plan to focus on it all through my holida
A Game Of Temptation 46
LAURA You’re pregnant. Two words. That was all it took to change my life. The doctor’s words still echoed in my head even well over thirty minutes later. I was pregnant. Pregnant as in with child. As in there was a minuscule human living inside of me. A tiny life growing inside of me. A life I had taken part in creating. While my thoughts were in utter chaos, I had to give it to myself; I was taking this quite well. I mean, I’d just found out that I was pregnant—something that had not been in my plan even in the furthest future. Hell, something that I wasn’t even sure I’d given much thought to before. And I wasn’t screaming or yelling my lungs out or raining curses on Alex for my current predicament. The truth was, I couldn’t do either of those things because what good could come out of it? I would only end up with a sore throat at best and a hurt Alex at worst. I know. I know. Since when did I start caring about how he feels? Since that night at his house when I confessed
A Game Of Temptation 47
LAURAI found him downstairs sitting on the couch, staring blankly at his laptop.He had his back to me and therefore didn’t see me approaching, but the moment I walked into his line of sight, he moved his laptop out of the way and made to stand. Just as he braced his hands on the couch to rise, I stopped in front of him and carefully placed one knee on the outside of his thigh, then the other one, before I lowered onto him.The look of surprise in his eyes made me feel like absolute shit. But then again, I suppose exhibiting such behaviour after the way things had gone between us less than thirty minutes ago was definitely throwing him.I braced his face with my palms and something thawed inside me when he leaned into my touch instantly, his eyes sliding shut as a deep exhale left him.My chest tightened at how tired he looked. How he shoved his face into my hands like he was starved for my affection. Did I not show this man enough that I cared about him?Even I knew the answer to th
A Game Of Temptation 48
LAURA “Oh, my poor baby,” Balery cried when she saw me, dumping her purse and the flowers she was carrying on the ground before hurrying over to sit next to me on the bed. Her eyes swept over my form once in in a quick survey, then she promptly burst into tears. My heart broke. “Oh, Balery please don’t cry.”I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d always been terrible at comforting people, especially when they cried, so I tended to avoid the act altogether. Right now, I could do nothing but stare at her helplessly as she sobbed. It made me feel like a piece of shit--for not knowing how to react to certain display of emotions and for making her cry in the first place.“But look at you,” she sniffed, tears running freely down her beautiful face. “You’re all patched up and I-I’ve never seen you like this--”“I suffered just one injury and it was to my head, Bales.” I cut her off. “I look worse than I feel. Really.” Stretching with mild difficulty, I handed her a kleenex from the bed
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A Game Of Temptation 62
LAURA One second Derrick had a blade to my face and the next, his body was flying backwards and slamming into the bathroom door. There was an audible thud and a loud pained grunt as he landed on his ass on the ground, the knife skidding on the floor until it stopped a few feet away from him. My breaths sawing in and out of my chest, I almost burst into tears when I saw the person who’d burst into the room.Hunter. Standing in the center of the room, he was big, intimidating, and he looked so royally pissed, even I shrank back against the chair I was sitting on. I’d never appreciated his size more than I did in that moment because seeing Derrick’s slumped form and then Hunter’s, I knew there was no way the former could face off against the latter. Which meant my unborn baby and I were going to get out of here alive. His eyes made one quick sweep of me. After confirming that I was unscathed—at least physically, he tu
A Game Of Temptation 61
ALEXWhen I entered the restaurant, my eyes scanned the tables for the woman I was supposed to be meeting here. I found her sitting at one of the tables to the right, going through the menu. Margaret Keaton was a beautiful woman. With dark brown hair peppered with streaks of silver, a round face bared, thanks to her hair pulled back in a ponytail, lips pulled up in a smile and green eyes bright and happy, she turned the eyes of both men and women. At fifty, she appeared far younger than her age. Had it not been for her rapidly greying hair, she would have been able to pass for mid-thirties. Making my way over to her, I ignored the curious glances thrown at me by a number of people. “Hi, Mom.”Eyes so similar to mine flew up in surprise. “Alex, I didn’t hear you come in!” Rising to her feet, she hugged me. I didn’t even have it in me to fake a smile as I hugged her back, kissing her cheek. As we sat down, mom’s too-knowing eyes coasted over me. “How have you been?”“Good. I’ve
A Game Of Temptation 60
LAURAI opened my mouth to speak but no word came out. I tried again. Nothing. My fingers started trembling and soon, my whole body was shaking. Oh my God. Derrick, the man who lived in my apartment building, who smiled and waved when he saw me, whom I’d given my phone number simply because I thought he was nice, was my stalker. Jesus Christ. Now I could see it. The soft tone of his messages one day then the next, he was being aggressive and forceful, just like how he’d gone from calm to livid right in front of me a while back. No wonder my building cameras hadn’t been able to find anyone strange coming and going. Because there was absolutely nothing strange about a tenant leaving his house and returning at the end of the day. My stalker had been living with me all along. So fucking close, and I’d been none the wiser. My shaking intensified when I remembered the things he’d said in some of his l
A Game Of Temptation 59
LAURAThe next time I opened my eyes, I was in a…room?I was sitting on a chair, which, along with a bed, bedside table and wardrobe, were the only things in the otherwise empty room.One minute I’d been walking at the beach and the next, I was in a room I couldn’t remember ever entering. How the hell had I ended up in this unfamiliar room? Squinting, I struggled to remember. Then I did. The masculine hand that had grabbed me from behind, pressing a cloth to my face, and that foul smell. My God, it had been so bad, I’d passed out from it. Wait. I’d passed out. Heart slamming against my rib-cage, I jerked up from the chair I was sitting on, but was pulled back down by a weight on my hands. I realized that both of my hands were handcuffed to the arms of the chair at the same moment what I assumed was the bathroom door opened and a big form stepped out. The shock that gripped me at the person standing in
A Game Of Temptation 58
LAURAIt was my third day at my mother’s house and she hadn’t smoked a single thing. She’d probably decided that she didn’t want to add any more to my suffering. Maybe she was abstaining simply because I was here, and for all the world, she could go back to smoking soon as I left. I’d take it. A win is a win. Speak of the devil. She appeared in the hallway, looking rather fresh in a bright short sleeved t-shirt paired with black leggings. It might sound like an exaggeration but to be honest, the dark circles under her eyes weren’t as obvious as they used to be. “Why, you’re positively radiant this morning!” She exclaimed, sitting on the arm of the couch I occupied. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed the remote, pausing the show I’d been watching. “Look who’s talking. Have you had a look in the mirror this morning?”“You’re just teasing me.”“Am not.” Just then, Jo walked into the house beaming, and I grinned a
A Game Of Temptation 57
ALEXShe blinked. “You can’t be serious.”I said nothing. The fact that I wanted to call the engagement off shouldn’t surprise her so much because I hadn’t wanted it in the first place. I’d only agreed to this insane idea because it had seemed appealing to my mother. Claire and I had dated for a few months in college before I’d caught her cheating. The thing was, during that short time, she’d somehow managed to worm her way into my family. Imagine my surprise when my mother had sent me a photo of the two shopping in Paris. Together. What my mother saw in her, I didn’t know—and didn’t care to.I admit that part of that was my fault because I hadn’t told my mother that I’d caught her cheating. Instead, I’d lied to her that the relationship simply hadn’t worked out so my mother had made it her life’s mission to make it work. Why didn’t I just tell my mother the truth, one might ask. Thing was, after the death
A Game Of Temptation 56
ALEXDarkness. That was the icy cold, unwelcome blanket that enveloped me when Laura left. I wasn’t sure if that was correct—or even possible—but I couldn’t explain it any better than that. With her gone, it felt like the very ground I walked on had been swept from right under my fucking feet and I’d been plunged into a bottomless, pitch-black pit, one where I’d been falling for the past hour. Still kneeling in the same spot I’d been when she walked out of the room and out of my life, I’d lost track of time. I couldn’t tell how long it had been, only that it had to have been a while because the hard floor was beginning to dig into my knees through the fabric of my pants. Saying that I didn’t have the strength to stand sounded like an exaggeration, but in truth, I had to muster every single atom of strength in my body to push to my feet, staggering to sit on the foot bench, bracing my elbows on my knees and dropping my face into my palms.Fuck. When we’d gone out to the doctor’s o
A Game Of Temptation 55
LAURA “No one dies from a broken heart.”That was my best friend’s attempt at reassuring me that I was, in fact, not going to die from this pain I felt. I doubted it, but I mustered a small smile at her and went back to what I’d been doing for the past hour—staring at the blank wall. I wasn’t sure why I’d even bothered to ask her when I knew the answer was a big fat yes.I firmly believed that I could very well die from the sheer amount of pain I was feeling. Everything on the inside of my body hurt. Every. Single. Thing. Hell, even breathing hurt. And for the first time in forever, I think I finally understood my mother and why she used. There was little I wouldn’t do to stop feeling like this. Balery sighed, placing the food tray she was carrying on the bedside table before sliding onto the bed, right next to me. “You have to eat something.”“I will,” I told her. “Now,” she ordered. “You haven’t eaten anything all day.”Rolling onto my back, I exhaled at the ceiling, regretti
A Game Of Temptation 54
LAURA “Fiancée,” I murmured, monotone, almost five minutes later. It was like an out of body experience when Alex had taken my arm and gently led me inside to sit on the couch. It was a good thing, because a few more seconds standing and my legs would have probably given out from the magnitude of the shock. “Oh dear,” I heard the woman murmur. The one who claimed she was Alex’s fiancée, that is. “Why does she look like she’s seen a ghost?” Alex didn’t respond. He lowered to his haunches in front of me and took my hands in his. “Baby, this isn’t what it looks like—”“What do you mean it’s not what it looks like?” The woman cut in. “Didn’t you tell her you’re engaged?” “When she leaves, I’ll explain everything to you. Please,” Alex continued, ignoring her. My vision was blurry so I couldn’t see the expression on his face clearly but he sounded panicked. Scared even. If this wasn’t what it looked like, then why was he scared? Why did he look so fucking guilty? Why wasn’t he denyin
