The anger that burned deep in my chest had transformed into a mix of emotions that I failed to understand. It just hurt deep inside of me. I have to call Justin…“Hi there!” Justin’s cheerful voice answered the phone when the line connected. “Hi…” I greeted him blankly. “Oh, you don’t sound so well. Did something happen perhaps?” he took a guess that was spot on. I must have sounded like the world was ending and I wasn’t even bothered to hide my distress anymore. Justin waited silently on the other end of the line for me to tell him what was wrong. I took in a deep breath as I tried to find the right words. “Adrian and Brandon ran into each other today. I mean, Brandon and I ran into Adrian together when he took me to take my fertility test. It was at Adrian’s hospital, and he was there…and they knew each other…and it was…a mess…” I explained while realizing that a lot of the things I said didn’t quite make sense.“Aha…right…” Justin murmured. “I wasn’t sure what I should have d
**A few days later**Taking a few days break really did seem to help my state of mind. After spending time alone for two days, I had dinner with Justin just like we had agreed. Justin came as a friend, and it was like an unspoken agreement between us that we would not talk about work or any of my other life problems. The conversation we shared was light and full of laughter and cheer. Each time I laughed along with Justin’s jokes, it made me realize that there were so many simple joys in life that I had been missing out on. Not having to worry about my problems, my work, or my clients for a while truly felt great. I wondered for a moment how Justin managed to tell my clients that I had suddenly decided to go on break and how they reacted; however, I decided not to ask while pushing that curious thought out of my mind. I admired Justin for how understanding and supportive he was of me. Justin simply told me to let him know when I wanted to start going back to work and left the decisio
His arms tightened around me as he pressed my body tightly against his. His body felt very warm and his embrace very comforting. Automatically, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to relax in his reassuring embrace. His hand moved to stroke my back as his other hand began stroking my hair. “Has life been too tough on you?” EROS whispered as he continued stroking my hair gently. It has. His tender words and beautiful voice somehow brought tears to my eyes. I felt the distinctive sting behind my eyes at his words and knew that I was about to burst out crying. It hadn’t occurred to me up until that point that I needed to cry or just how upset and tired I was of everything that was happening to me. His arms around me and his fingers running through my long hair made me feel strangely warm inside. “Everything will be fine, Elena…” EROS whispered close to my ear. I had no idea if everything would be fine or not and I knew well enough that just because he was telling me that it would be
My eyes widened when I felt the warmth of his body enveloping around mine once more. His hands pressed against the small of my back and drew my body close to him until the length of our bodies were touching. I closed my eyes and breathed in his familiar scent that seemed to drive me crazy. In the end, I ended up leading EROS all of the way to my room. Never in my wildest dreams did I even dream of bringing one of my clients to my room like this. The biggest issue was that this was my safe zone where I was supposed to be able to be myself without the façade that I had to put on for my job. The second biggest problem was that the room was small and didn’t have much to entertain guests. My eyes glanced over to EROS as he stood in my room after I had switched on the lights. I closed the door behind us and locked it before my attention returned to my guest. EROS stood still in my room as he looked around as if he didn’t quite know what to do. “Sorry for the fact that there’s almost noth
“Come to bed, Elena. Should I help you dry your hair?” he offered with a teasing smile. “No, you don’t need to. You should just go to sleep…” I muttered. “How can I possibly go to bed before my princess?” EROS asked teasingly. His beautiful hand patted the empty spot on my bed as he smiled charmingly. I rolled my eyes at him before making my way to the bed and sitting down on it. I had no idea why I was suddenly in a bad mood as I reached for my hair dryer and began drying my hair. EROS leaned his head on one of his hands as he watched me with intense interest as if he had never seen a woman drying her hair before. I should have known that because he turned up without anything packed that he would be sleeping pretty much naked with me for the night. Of course, I didn’t have any men’s clothes or pajamas that would fit EROS on hand that I could offer to him. “Your hair is quite long…” he murmured as his hand reached toward my hair. I felt his fingers capture a strand of my hair be
“Are you starting to feel sleepy?” he asked softly. “Yes…” I admitted honestly. My eyelids had started to feel heavy, and it felt like I could drift off into sleep at any moment. I guessed I never knew how much I liked before held and embraced tenderly like this before going to bed. “Good night, Elena. I hope you sleep well without any dreams…” he whispered gently into my ear. “Good night…” I murmured.…The following morning, I woke up in a very shocked and disorientated state. My eyelids felt heavy from sleep but what felt unusually heavy was the sensation of something pressing on top of my chest. My body felt heavy and felt extremely lazy and without a doubt, I wasn’t looking forward to the new day. That was the reason why it took that much more extra effort for me to slowly open my eyes. The empty familiar ceiling of my bedroom greeted me. Everything seemed normal until I lifted my head a little off the pillow and glanced down at the source of discomfort on my chest. At first
EROS slowly sat up before he looked down and grinned at me knowingly. He must have realized that his little teasing had started to turn me on. Regardless, he didn’t decide to pursue or push on the matter. To my surprise, it seemed like EROS was doing a super good job of holding himself back. Unfortunately, it was high time that we got out of bed. I got up and headed for the small kitchenette in my room and poured myself a glass of water. When I turned around to take a look at him, EROS was sitting on the side of my bed while he ran his fingers through his tousled blond hair. Needless to say, it was an extremely sexy and relaxing sight. I didn’t look away as I admired how his muscles moved as he moved his arm and then arched his neck to the side. His body is indeed beautiful and I didn’t feel shameful for staring at and admiring it. Taking that as a reward for hosting him for the night didn’t seem like such a bad idea. “Do you eat breakfast?” I asked. “No…” he replied immediately.“
Logic and emotions struggled for dominance over my actions and my body. I had just told him to leave and that he shouldn’t come here again, so why was I about to chase after him. Why would I do that? Nothing seemed to make sense to me for a while. Instead of opening the door, I let go of the door handle before forcing my arm back down to rest at the side of my body. My mind told myself that I was doing the right thing. I had told EROS the right thing that was best for all of us and I was doing the right thing for not stopping him from leaving. Even if my words had hurt him or offended him, it was still the right thing to do and that he would get over it soon enough. He might not even feel hurt in the first place, and it could have just been my own imagination running wild. I heaved a sigh and turned on my heels to head back to my room before I would have the chance to change my mind again. …The day that I had to return to work arrived unavoidably. To my surprise, I felt bored eno
“What are you sorry about, Elena? Are you sorry for turning me down?” he asked.His cold and very calm tone made my body tremble, and I could feel myself sweating from my own nervousness. I wanted to answer him but then I realized that I didn’t know what I was sorry for. “Please let me go home. I’ll make it up to you another day,” I said to excuse myself for the day. I turned to reach for the car door and once again I felt his grip on my arm pulling me back. It was rare for Brandon to act persistent like this, and it just made me want to scream at him out of frustration. I whirled around to face him ready to do just that.“What is it that you really want?” I spat. “To have sex with you,” he replied smoothly.“You know well that that isn’t want I’m talking about…” I said through clenched teeth as my frustration quickly turned to anger. “What’s wrong, Elena? If you can do it with him in the hospital, surely, you can do it with me here in the car…” he said as he stared at me with a v
The lights turned green, and we were on our way again. Our brief yet intense conversation came to a pause. We were getting close to the intersection where Brandon would usually let me off so that I could walk back to my place. The night felt darker than normal, and I wasn’t sure if that was because of my mood or not. Not a lot of cars were on the road which thankfully made the traffic lighter than normal. “Should we go to your room? It’s supposed to be really close by, isn’t it?” he suggested seductively. I turned to give him a curious look. His sudden question came out of nowhere and it surprised me even more to find that he seemed quite serious about it. My lips curved into a smile before I automatically began laughing it off as a passing comment that didn’t mean anything. “Thanks for driving me back,” I said as I reached for the door. There was no point in delaying my departure any further. We had arrived at the spot where I was supposed to get off and so I should do exactly th
“Yes, and I like it that way as long as I’m the only one buying,” he replied without missing a heartbeat. I bit hard on my lower lip when I had to admit to myself that I had asked him the wrong question and had invited this misfortune upon myself. His hand around mine felt warm and his grip was firm as he pulled me after him toward his car. Something told me that he wasn’t kidding when he said that. I let out a sigh when I resigned myself to following him silently to his car. Fortunately, there weren’t many cars on the road and traffic was extremely light. That meant that it wouldn’t take too long for him to drop me off so that I could walk back to my place. It wasn’t like I was scared of him, but I did feel uncomfortable being in the enclosed space of the car with him alone. The revealing and brightly colored dress that I had on did not make me feel better and I wondered why I wasn’t smart enough to opt for a pair of pants and matching blazer instead. Everything might have been in
The desire that I sensed in his intense gaze made my heartbeat quicken despite the many times that I told myself silently in my head to remain calm. My lips felt dry, and my tongue instinctively moved to lick my lower lip. “Thanks for the advice, I guess. If there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave so you can get back to whatever it was you were working on,” I muttered softly as I tried my best to excuse myself. “One more thing before you go,” he said to halt my departure.This time it was Brandon who got out of his seat. I turned my head around as he walked toward the worktable in the room. To my surprise, he returned with a box. Brandon came to stand right in front of me before shoving the box toward me. “What is this?” I asked with a hint of suspicion. “Open it and you’ll see,” he said without answering my question. “Ok…” I murmured while feeling slightly confused. It was so like Brandon to be mysterious about everything. With what had just happened between us, I didn’t think
Maybe, just maybe, things would have turned out differently if he hadn’t left me. If we never broke up, my life might have been better or more normal. I was very tempted to think that it was his fault that I ended up the way I was. If I had been younger and less experienced, I would have thought exactly that. That it was all because he dumped me that I was forced to marry George to save my family’s face. Back then, I was too heartbroken to think straight or resist my parent’s proposal. The man that I chose out of my own free will had betrayed me and suddenly left. I was too shocked to even face reality and the mistake that I made. It made me lose all self-confidence that I could make any correct decisions in my life and that perhaps, my parents were the ones who knew better. If I had been younger, I would have pinned everything on Brandon as his fault. However, I was no longer that young, fresh, and green. I looked up and I couldn’t hold in my giggle and ended up laughing softly at
There were many things that I needed to apologize for, and I was certain that he knew that already. It was unfortunate, but I wasn’t in a position with a whole lot of bargaining power, and he absolutely knew that as well. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he wanted to hear me say it, then I had no other choice but to say it. “That day at the hospital, I was unprofessional. Although I was supposed to be working for you, I ended up serving another client when we happened to run into each other…” I said before I pressed my lips tightly into a thin line. My throat and my lips felt dry, and I had to run my tongue along my lower lip. Brandon did not say anything, and he did not seem at all impressed at my attempt to do things his way. His eyes stared coldly at me, and I knew that he was waiting for me to go on. “This is all still kind of new for me, and yes, I know that it’s not a great excuse, but I didn’t know how to handle running into two of my clients at the same time. I panicked…” I
Just as I had expected, within the already very private space was another level of privacy when he led me to a private room. Once again, I began to wonder what exactly Brandon had planned. Although he appeared the way that he always did, I couldn’t deny that the atmosphere between us was unusually tense. I wondered if he also felt the way that I did or if I was the only one who felt unusually stiff while we were together. “Sit anywhere you like,” he instructed casually as he gestured to the large set of white sofas in the middle of the room. My eyes scanned the pristinely white and modern interior of the private room that we were in. Apart from the large sofa set that was in the middle of the room, there was a very large shiny white work desk with a matching white leather chair. Brandon must have been working in this room before my arrival because his laptop still had its lid open on the table. “I didn’t know that you liked working in shared working spaces nowadays…” I said to make
Brandon was definitely the heir to the largest chain of casinos on top of hotels for sure. Brandon never played any game unless he was the gamemaster. I have never seen him lose a bet before either in my life. George was seriously a fool to think that he could win against Brandon and at his own casino at that. So now, what game is he going to make me play?The only way to find out was to ask him. I thought that that was ironic in and of itself. If I had to pick, then I would say that I would prefer not to see Brandon. Although what happened was more my fault than his, my desire to hide away from him outweighed my rational sense and reason to want to meet him. Before I would chicken out and change my mind, I took out my phone and sent a simple text to Brandon. ‘Where and when do you want to meet me?’ I counted silently in my mind to around twenty as I stared at my phone screen. Just as I had anticipated, Brandon sent me back a reply within that timeframe. Had he been expecting for m
“About that trip to the orphanage that we were talking about…” he began before looking at me as if to gauge my reaction. “I’d still love to go if you still want me to,” I replied almost immediately. “Really?” Adrian asked with such an excited look on his face. Suddenly, he appeared much younger and a lot more innocent. Just like an excited little boy who had successfully invited his friend on a trip, he beamed a smile at me. With what had happened between us, maybe he thought that I would have changed my mind about going on a trip with him. If he was someone else, that might have turned out to be the case. However, if I was being honest, I really looked forward to going on that trip with him. It wasn’t just because it was a chance to spend more time with Adrian, but the idea of visiting orphanages felt like the right thing to do for me. Getting in contact with my past life might do me some good and help me figure out something about my sense of self and who I was. After being adop