He walks past me to the chair I normally sit in, and he pulls it out, waiting for me to take a seat. Questioning everything in my head, I take the seat and glance toward the folder, my mind racing. What’s inside it?
Huxley takes a seat as well, but instead of facing his plate, he scoots his chair close to mine and turns toward me.
“Lottie.”
Taking a deep breath, I turn toward him as well, a tear slipping down my cheek.
“Baby . . .” he says quietly while reaching out and wiping away the tear. “Please don’t cry.”
“Wh-what do you . . . want, Huxley?” I ask, getting the words out.
With a concerned gaze, he sits straighter and says, “I want you, Lottie.”
“You screwed that up.”
“I know. Trust me, I know how bad I screwed this up. It’s been the biggest mistake of my life, charging into our home, and sticking blame on you for something I know, deep down, you would never do.” It doesn’t slip past me that he said our house. “And I’ve tried to figure out how to make this up to you, how to show you how sorry I am, and I realized, maybe I should bring it back to where we started.”
Slightly confused, I ask, “What do you mean?”
From the folder, he pulls out a stack of stapled papers. When my eyes land on it, I realize it’s our contract.
He stands from his chair and walks over to the corner of the dining room where a buffet table lines the wall. Sitting on top of it, plugged in, is a paper shredder. Without a pause, he sends the contract into the paper shredder, and the deafening sound of it eating up our contract echoes through the room.
And for some reason, it hurts. That was the thing that bonded us together. It’s what freed me of my student loans. Is that gone too? It’s what brought me close to Huxley, and he tore it up without a blink of an eye.
“Why did you do that?” I ask, my anguish clear in my voice.
“Because we need to start fresh, Lottie.” He walks back to the table and takes a seat. He reaches for my hand but I don’t let him have it. Dipping his head in defeat, he says, “Lottie, please, you’re not making this easy on me.”
“Do you think I should?” I ask. “Because you sure as hell didn’t make it easy on me last night when you were accusing me of telling Ellie the truth.”
“I know, but—”
“And do you think it was easy on me, seeing the absolute disdain you had for me?”
“No, but—”
“And do you think it was easy on me, knowing the man that I trusted, that I was falling for, didn’t trust me to keep him safe with our secret?”
“No. But, Lottie—”
“I don’t know why I came here.” I stand from my chair.
Huxley stands as well. “Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving,” I say. “This was stupid.”
I head toward the entryway, but Huxley tugs on my hand, spinning me back around. With anger in his eyes, he says, “Sit down, Lottie.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said sit. Down.” He speaks through his teeth, and in that instant, my sorrow turns to anger.
“Who the hell do you think you are—”
He moves toward me and gently pushes me up against the dining room wall, cutting my words short. My breath catches in my throat as his one hand pins me in place and the other strikes the wall, propping him up.
“I’m trying to apologize, damn it,” he says, his anger spiking.
“And you think this is the way to do it?”
“Do you have a better idea?” he asks, his eyes never leaving mine. “You’re so goddamn stubborn that pissing you off seems to be the only way to make you listen.”
“You hurt me, Huxley. I don’t want to listen.”
“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.” He sees right through me. “If you didn’t want to be here, then you never would’ve gotten in that car, and I know you, Lottie. You love me—”
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t.”
He presses harder against me, trapping my breath in my lungs. “Don’t you dare fucking lie to me. You don’t lose feelings like that overnight. Now, is that how you want to have this conversation, with me possessing you? Because I’d rather be civil with you, not revert to our old ways of communication. But if I need to, I’ll hold you here like this, all night, until you listen.”
I wet my lips as my body heats with lust.
Goddamn it.