Amelia POV::I am walking to campus today. It is a thirty minutes walk and I hate the exercise but I am too nervous to drive. It is the first day back and Ashley still hasn't replied to my latest messages asking her when she was resuming. Her stuff was still in her room in my apartment. Untouched. Her family lived in town but she hadn't wanted to go to college from there and she didn't want to stay in hostels either, that is how we ended up being roommates. But now it is clear she has changed her mind. Else, it would be too heartbreaking if she was already living with a new roommate. There is a chance I will see her in class today and I am nervous about that because I don't know how to act with her. I still don't have an explanation for her silence. The Ashley I know, the Ashley that was my sister before our joint kidnapping, that Ashley would have tried to hash out the issues we were having. She would have insisted on it. She always hated conflicts and malice. It made her uncomfort
. I look out into the rows and rows of empty seats and the small group of people at the front. Well, I will get good seats afterall."Hey! Amelia!" I know that voice. I look ahead in the direction of it and sure enough, it is Dylan. Waving at me with a big smile like I was a long lost friend. He is sitting alone in the second row of seats to the left. There are four empty spaces in that row and nobody is sitting with him. "Hey, Dylan. Happy first day of resumption." I greet him as I slide in next to him. Nobody pays us any attention. The few people around are classmates whom I have never crossed paths with and everybody is in cliques, having their own discussions and all. Dylan is smiling at me. I return his smile and ask, "what is happening? Why is there barely anyone around?" "There is only one explanation." He says with an upbeat tone that I don't follow. "They are all hungover! I left the party early but I have heard it got really wild and didn't wrap up till about five this m
"Oh. No, I knew about it. Uh. Yeah. I knew about it." I say, turning away so he doesn't see my red face. "That was crazy. Wasn't it?" He asks. I start panicking. Quietly. Dylan saw us in Paris. It would be easier for him to believe Charlotte's insinuations. "She just ruined her career. I doubt anybody would hire her after that stunt she pulled." Dylan adds when I don't reply for a second too long. "Yeah. That is what I think too." I manage to say. I can't read his tone or what he is trying to drive at. I turn to look at him, there is nothing suspicious on his face. I remind myself what a surface personality Dylan has. He adores Linc. Of course, he didn't believe Charlotte's claims. But still, it is such a haunting reminder of reality. Being back there in Linc's mansion, I was shielded from the actual reach of that scandal, it is scary to meet someone who knows about it in real life, outside of that online world. Even though he is blindly on Linc's side, it still weirds me out. I
"The latter." I say, looking him squarely in the face. "Okay. I was asking because I plan to spend my afternoon in the cafe down the road, study a bit and just hang. Would you like to tag along?" He asks the question confidently, holding eye contact. I am taken aback by the obvious pick up line. Or am I thinking about it too much? "Uh..." I sneak a quick glance behind me and Ashley is already out of her seat, the group is moving towards the door."Give me a minute." I say to Dylan and I don't wait for a reply before I am bolting out of the row of seats and going after Ashley."Ashley!" I yell with all the exasperated air in my lungs. The class has emptied out to an extent but the people left behind stop whatever they are doing and stare at me. Ashley turns and look at me, blankly. Her group of friends stare at me like I have two heads. I ignore them. I ignore everybody as I make my way to her."Can we talk?" I ask her, not caring to keep my voice low. "No. We don't have anything t
"Wait, hope you don't think I am trying to pick you up or something like that? I am gay. I am just trying to be a friend." He says with a self conscious shy smile, he looks away. I just stare at him. All I can hear in my head is Ashley's sneer. I still can't fully process everything. It is like it all happened on super speed so that I can't follow the sequence of actions at all. Somehow, I am hoping she would burst back in through those doors and hug me, laughing that she tricked me good. This doesn't feel real."Dylan, I am sorry but let's do that some other time." I say eventually. His face falls but he shrugs it off quickly. "Alright. Have a great rest of your day. I will see you on Wednesday!" He says enthusiastically. I can't even manage a smile, I just nod and turn around. The morning sun hits me full in the face as I step onto the sidewalk. I contemplate taking the bus. But then it is nowhere to be found and I don't want to wait in place for too long so I am going to do the
Finally, she pulls me in and closes the door. A quick glance around the living room tells me she keeps a clean tidy space. She has made the place a home. That is what she is capable of, just by being in a house, she makes it a home. My mansion is miserably empty without her. For the past eight days, I had dreaded going back home. Something that never used to happen before she came for her internship program. All that emptiness without her laughter to make it feel full and useful. I even contemplated moving out to a smaller place. But that would be crazy. "Oh my God. Are you really here? I missed you so much." She says, leaning up to wrap her arms around me again, she crushes her soft body against mine and I sigh with content. "I don't have the words that will properly equate how much I missed you, Ames." I say into her coconut scented thick golden hair. It is the truth. I feel it in every bones of my body and it is a different kind of misery knowing I will have to feel like this fo
"How are you? What happened? You sounded really sad when you called earlier." He says. I have missed his deep baritone and the way it reverberates through my chest, travels across my body, making my fingertips tingle and my stomach erupt in butterflies. "Ashley. I saw her today." I say quietly. I know he came here to help me get through my heartbreak, but I don't feel like talking about her right now. I don't want her to taint my temporary good mood. "I take it your conversation with her didn't go well." He says gently, his fingers on my skin is reassuring. Gentle. Eliciting little fires. I just woke up from a nap but he is lulling me to sleep. "No. It didn't." I say. Ashley would not let go of her suspicions about Linc's involvement with Tyler's death. She simply refuses to. And I can't make sense of it. Judging from my brief interaction with her today, I have to come to terms with the fact that I probably won't be able to make sense of anything concerning her anymore. "Hm. She s
"You look better than you did on Monday." Dylan says, giving me a long sideway glance. "How do you mean?" I ask him, though I know exactly what he means. It is the damn smile. I can't keep it off my face. It is wednesday and I am still not over the bliss of having Linc come over that Monday afternoon. He left at night and those few hours we spent together, talking, cooking, teasing, laughing, they were the best hours of my life yet. "Well, for one, you can't stop smiling. And then you are, like, glowing. You looked like you could use a hug on Monday and now you are just different. If you have a magic elixir, put me on please." Dylan says, nudging me in the arm and smiling. I can't tell him the elixir is Linc. We are walking to the coffee place down the road from the department he swears by to hang out like I promised him I would last time. I didn't expect him to keep a spare seat for me beside him today, but he did, calling me enthusiastically when I walked into the class, I joined
The door swings open and Ashley walks in, she comes straight to where I am perched in the middle of the room in my expensive wedding dress that costs seven figures, designed by a top rated designer to flatter my body and make me look unreal. It was unspoken but also to make my tiny pregnant bulge not very visible. And it is perfect. I feel like a fairy in the low V-neck, long sleeved, ankle length gown made with sheer lace, embroidered with real diamonds along my silhouette. I feel pretty. "Are you okay?" She asks.I shake my head. I am far from okay. My life is a fairytale and I can't seem to snap to reality. We are having the wedding in a quaint countryside ranch in the south of France, magical and ethereal. How can I be okay? It is a small wedding. When I say small, I mean it is just Linc and I, Ashley and Dylan, Chris who is Linc's best friend who I am just meeting who happens to be a very jovial man with a wicked sense of humour, his girlfriend, a french model whose name was so
I am alone in the bed. But Linc's scent lingers in the pillows, sheets, my senses. His side of the bed is warm. I can tell he just left. But to where? It is still Sunday right? I look around for my phone, it is six p.m in the evening of the same day so he didn't go to work. My bladder pushes all the other thoughts from my head as I make to get up and go pee. After peeing, I look at myself in the mirror and I find that I can't quite recognise the woman looking back at me. Sensual and free. My eyes are glazed and it is not because of sleep. Wild and sated. My hair is a tousled mess atop my head, hanging loosely down to frame my breasts. Linc had left me multiple hickeys. On my neck, clavicle, shoulder, breasts, everywhere I look, he is there, he has claimed me in ways that I could never detach from. It is not our first time but something about the selfless way he pleasured my body till I came, felt different, new and exhilarating. I need him to come back from wherever he went to immed
I skip over her waiting flesh, the clean trim of her pussy, the little triangle of golden hair, I kiss her inner thighs, raising them up for easy access to the feast I am about to have. Amelia quakes in my arms, I can't help the cocky smirk that comes on my face. We are only just getting started, my love. I give her a little bite around her smooth bikini line and she shivers, the sound of her breathing is audible. Quicker. Shallower. I am positioned in between her thighs and I look up, holding her eyes. "Look at me, my love. I want you to watch me as I worship you." I say, my voice is raspy and endlessly choked full with emotions that overwhelm me. Her scent is in my head, clouding my senses, holding me captive, I am hers, forever. "Linc." She only breathes in response. Waiting. Hunger. Writhing. Arching. Pleading. Wanting. I lean down and run the pointed tip of my tongue through her slick pussy folds, maintaining eye contact, enjoying the rapturous look of pleasure stretching her
Linc Dmitri POV::I kiss her like she was life itself. She is my life. She is my everything. She just made me sob like a child with the heartwrenching news that she was pregnant. Never have I ever been that overwhelmed. Completely caught off guard. I am going to be a father at forty four. Amelia, my girl, my precious little love, she is going to make me a father. It is hardly believable, I can't seem to fully come to terms with it. When I turned forty, I kind of stopped bothering about the whole heir thing. I figured I would just pass down most of my wealth to charity and the other half to her, even if she wasn't in my life anymore. I reviewed my will a few months ago, before I even called her to come back to New York, I reviewed my will and made her the part beneficiary of my entire wealth. That was the extent of my loyal affection for her. I was never going to let her struggle for anything. And then she returned and we gave in to this beautiful fire that was our relationship and I
"What?" "What?" Linc's voice overshadows Ashley's. I look away from the intensity of his eyes burning into me. My heart is beating hard and fast. I am not scared or worried, I am a lot of things. A lot of bubbling emotions and I start crying again. It is definitely the hormones. The test I did didn't say how far along I was, just that I was pregnant. Positive. "When did you find out?" Linc is in front of me. Hovering above me. He is all I see through my tears, he places his hands on my cheek gently, softly, like I was a feather he could blow away easily, like I was fragile and he was scared of hurting me, I am crying too hard to talk and he just quietly swipes away the tears, cradling my face with so much affection, the tears would not stop falling. "Yesterday night." I manage to say through my tears. He pulls me close and I get lost inside him. His huge hard body engulfs mine and I look at Ashley, her face is wet again and she is trying to wipe her face clean, she pats down my ha
"I knew her through Trent. We paid her a condolences visit and help her out with little things occasionally." Ashley says and I realise that I asked her the question out loud. She is telling me her connection with Sheryl and it only makes the sense of dread tighten in the coil of my empty belly. "I pay her a visit every Thursday to check in on how she was doing. When I got there this week, she was drunk and started sobbing uncontrollably about revenge and all sorts of things I couldn't follow till she brought out the phone and showed me the video. She said she was going to share it since, but hadn't found the courage to. She was an emotional grieving mess. It was sad to watch. I stayed with her till she fell asleep and I took the phone and deleted it from the cloud it was saved on. When she wakes up and finds it gone, she might believe she did it herself when she was drunk or whatever. I went to your place that night but you weren't around. I expected to see you in class the next day
Amelia POV::I hear the knock at the door but I don't move. I don't know when I slept off last night, and when I open my eyes to see that it is morning, I couldn't believe it. Yet, I did not move even then, not even to go pee or brush my mouth. And now with that persistent knocking, I remain inert. I didn't order anything and I am not expecting anyone so maybe it is a neighbour's guest at the wrong door. I am not bothered to go check it out. They would leave when they figure it out. My entire world is spinning and I can't seem to get a grip. A thousand thoughts rush through my mind and none is comforting. I am hot and cold at the same time and I am hungry but incredibly nauseous and sensitive to the faintest smell. I couldn't keep anything down if I tried. I sit up suddenly, alarmed by the unmistakable click of the door and then it is open and I hear that familiar voice, that silky smooth baritone that makes my insides melt and feel like mush. Linc. A weak smile plays on my lips in s
"Mr. Dmitri, are you there?" Mr. Hageman's voice comes on again, polite and persistent. Sometimes, I forget about the man's existence in the house with me. But I feel his presence in how pristine he keeps the mansion. It is not an easy job to do, but he manages it all perfectly. His bookkeeping is honest and professional, I have had him for close to ten years now and I have never had any issues with his work. I send birthday and holiday cards to his wife and kids through my assistants every year. "Yes. Send her in. I will be down in thirty minutes." I reply, getting up. I didn't plan to get out of bed today but here comes Ashley of all people, to drag me out of it. I am very curious about her visit but not enough that I would clean up before meeting her. Amelia told me she doesn't have the best opinions of me and that makes her visit all the more suspicious. Is she here for Amelia? I thought they fell out with eachother. I take a quick cold shower, put on clean casual clothes and
Linc Dmitri POV::I stretch my arms out and I come up empty. Air. Nothing. She is not here. I open my eyes and glare at the sunlight splashing on my face. It is Sunday morning and I am in a foul mood. Just yesterday, I woke up in the best mood, with her soft body in my bed after a long night of ravaging her body to my soul's satisfaction. I woke up to her warm body snuggling into me and I couldn't resist fucking her again. And now, she is not here anymore. I can't wrap my head around anything. I swing my arm up to cover my eyes. I can't stand the brightness of the morning, it feels like the universe is taunting me. How can time be moving on when my world is unstable?Did she break up with me? Are we broken up? I am forty four and I can't tell. But I do know one thing. The ugly ache stuck in my chest. Her words hurt me and I was too numb to act when she finally said she had to leave because she needed space. I just watched her. And she left. It took me hours of stunned hurtful silence