Seeing her was like learning to breathe again. To be that close to her was like learning to swim. Then she left, something I well and truly deserved. Lotus has been on my mind from the moment I met her. Even leaving her didn’t diminish one bit how I feel about that woman. I wish it could have, with all that shit about distance and time healing all wounds. That’s complete and utter bullshit. Not one woman after her has measured up to the standards I’ve held for Lotus, and believe me I’ve tried, multiple times. Even fucking several women who look like her, to just imagine it was her, but none of it worked. None of it ever fucking worked. Seeing her again wasn’t a rare occasion, it happened for a reason, it was time.
Walking into Sebastian’s office is the same as when I did the day he invited me to attend the function. This time though, he isn’t exactly excited to see me again. He nods to his chair after I shut the door, and I sit, watching him as he’s watching me.
“You’re using me to get to her, aren’t you?” These are the first words that leave his mouth. He’s partially right. I could have found another lawyer to handle my business affairs, but why would I when I have him at hand. Two birds with one stone as the saying goes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He shakes his head, looking down at his desk then back up to me. “He told me she was with you last night. You know he had her followed.”
This is news to me and has my attention spiked. I sit straighter, leaning further in. “He has his fiancée followed?” I question him, and he shakes his head at me.
“Not in the way you’re thinking. He’s concerned for her.”
I scoff while rolling my eyes. “Did he know of me, Sebastian?”
This time it’s him that looks guilty. “Yes. She says your name in her sleep. Still to this day.”
“It’s because she will never love him like she loves me.”
“It’s been years, Orion, why now? Lotus started to do well. She’s gotten back a fraction of who she used to be.”
“Because I haven’t breathed a single fucking breath since she’s been gone.”
He slams his hands on the table and stands up. “You fucking broke her heart, or did you forget that?” He’s angry, he loves her. He should because she loves him just as much. Except Sebastian is usually the too calm and positive outlook kind of guy, it’s very rare to see him angry, in any situation. Unless time has changed him, which I doubt.
“I did what was necessary, now I’m back. To fix it. To fix her.”
“There’s something you should know.” He sits back down, and before he speaks again, the door opens then closes. Footsteps come up behind me I see the figure as they walk around and sit next to me. Sebastian looks to him, the fiancé, then to me with a fake smile.
“Orion, fancy seeing you again?” He holds out his hand offering it to me. Looking to it then to him, I don’t take it. What’s the point? I don’t want to be friends with someone fucking what’s mine. He drops his hand, turning back to Sebastian. “You didn’t tell me you had a client.”
Sebastian nods his head and taps his pen on the desk, unsure of what to say.
“How is your fiancée?” I ask, smiling.
He looks back to me, knowing I know. “Naked I’m guessing, where I left her.”
My anger rises, my fists clench hard wanting to teach him some respect. “Tell her I said hi, would ya?” I manage to squeeze out without raising my voice too high.
“I don’t think I’ll do that.” His leg starts tapping where he sits.
“Afraid maybe?”
“Of what? You?” He laughs, but I hear the fakeness in it. I’ve been around enough fake people to tell them apart. Roan is fake and he is hiding something.
“She still closes her eyes every time I touch her,” I say while standing. I give a curt nod to Sebastian then look down at Roan. “Does she do that for you?” I don’t wait for his answer as I walk out the door, not even bothering to shut it as I go.
Leaving the building, Cole is waiting for me in the car. He doesn’t say much as I get in and starts it up, driving off. It’s not until we pull up to the hotel that he finally speaks.
“Why did you go there to see him?”
He already knows the damn answer. Cole handles all that side of shit, so he knows it wasn’t for business.
“She still says my name when she sleeps.” She used to do it often. Especially the nights I didn’t come home until very late.
Cole remembers, nodding his head. “Have you considered it’s in her nightmares now?”
Shit! That thought never crossed my mind. Shaking my head, I don’t want that possibility.
“What will you do if she doesn’t want you back?”
It’s something I haven’t thought about because the thought of that happening makes me want to murder someone.
“It won’t.”
“It could,” he replies, then bangs his hands on the steering wheel. “She was my friend too, you know. She wouldn’t even see me after everything happened. Did I tell you I tried to see her? Did I? No. Because I understood why you did what you did. But that doesn’t make it any easier, especially since she doesn’t know. And I have a feeling even if she did know, she’d be angrier at you for not talking it through with her.” He leaves the car, slamming his door after finishing his sentence. I get out and follow him to the lift.
“I did what was best at the time.”
“You fucked her over. You weren’t a team with her. Tell me, does this guy consider her in things? Is he a team member in their relationship? Because I’m afraid if he is, you have no luck.” The lift rises with Cole staring at me. When did this fucker become so smart? He’s never been in love unless you count Yumi, but Lord knows what that’s about.
“She doesn’t love him like that.”
Cole shakes his head, stepping off. Arriving at the penthouse, it’s full of people. Women are drinking, some are naked, while men ogle their tits and others grab at them.
“Fuck, how long for?” I ask, forgetting we were hosting.
“Tonight only,” Cole replies, walking away straight to the bar. Dirty business we tried to make a thing of the past, I now own the largest string of pharmacies in all of Australia. I’m well versed with drugs, good and bad, they’re what I excel at.
The bad, we tried to remove, but some still sticks and it sticks like glue. Kama, my biggest buyer, was one I could never remove. He’s always polite, his threats made with a smile and a massive knife in his hand. He was my first score while I was studying. I couldn’t say no to dealing to him, to making him my own special narcotic and selling it for money. So much money. Money I’d never dreamed of before. He’s a friend, yet an enemy, all rolled into one. He’s a man I couldn’t trust but would take his money. The product I sold to him netted me over half of what I’ve made from my own businesses. It was stupid, but it was all I had at the time.
Kama sits in the corner of the bar with one of his men next to him drinking. He notices me, nods his head for me to come over. Cole notices and shakes his head looking away. Kama hands me a drink the moment I reach him, smiling brightly as usual.
“Been a while, Orion.” He tips the glass to his lips and watches me over the ridge. The drink he passed me stays in my hand. When Kama goes somewhere, a posse of people follow him. That’s why my hotel room is so damn full.
“Not long enough.” He thinks I’m joking, but I’m not. I plan to cut off supply to him, he just doesn’t know it yet. I know consequences will follow that action. But I’m trying to go clean. I have to be clean for once in my life. Why not start now, even if it lands me on my own death bed?
“Oh, come on, you miss this.” He waves his hand around the room. Turning away, I look, not wanting a single one of them here. Even the women. Usually, I’d end this night in my bed with one of his women. Tonight, not so much. I want nothing to do with them.
“I have a redhead for you. I remember you like them the most.”
Turning back to face him, he’s watching me. “Not tonight.”
“You never did tell me why redheads. Care to enlighten me?” He’s digging. I hid her away for years, now he’s digging again.
“They’re my choice of flavor.”
“Ahhh… like I like blondes. That it?”
“Yep.”
He resumes drinking. “We can talk business another day, but tonight, I want to fuck.” He gets up from his seat and walks away with one of his men following him.
Does he not feel safe here?
He shouldn’t.
I would probably kill him if I had the chance and it was just the two of us alone. Then I’d cremate his body so it would never be found.
“What was that about?” Cole asks, with a woman attached to his hip.
“Nothing.”
“You want to do it sooner than we talked about. Don’t you?”
I nod my head, not looking at him while watching Kama walk off with his blonde.
“Fuck!” Cole swears, making me turn to him.
“What?”
“You know how he is. We’re going to have to take extra precautions. He’s going to try to kill us. That’s fucking what.”
I laugh. “He can drown me in the water where I belong.”
Cole’s hand smacks the back of my head then he walks off, leaving me sitting in the same position. He hates it when I spend hours in the water, he thinks one day I won’t come back up. Maybe I won’t. Staying there even when the party dies down, I sit and watch my phone, contemplating calling her. Sebastian text messaged me her number a while ago, and I have just let it sit on my cell phone, taunting me. Would she even be awake? Turning my cell to silent, I press call. It rings, and after the fifth ring, I’m about to hang up when her voice startles me.
“Hello.” She waits and says it again. “Hello?”
“We need to talk, Lotus.”
Her breathing into the phone stops, and I know she knows it’s me. So I wait until she composes herself enough so she can speak again.
“I don’t think that’s a smart thing to do.”
“It is.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You can,” I tell her, knowing she can. She is, after all, the strongest person I know.
“When?” she asks.
“Come to our place in one week.”
“I don’t know about meeting there.”
“It needs to be there, Lotus. It’s where it all started. It’s where it ended. It needs to be there,” I tell her with my hand on my head, hoping she doesn’t say no.
“One week.”
“Yes, a week.”
“Okay.” She goes quiet. “Roan knows about you.”
“I know.” She goes quiet again. “One week, Lotus.” I hang up knowing if I stay on any longer I’ll not be able to hang up the phone. Just listening to her breathing will have to be enough.
Right now, though, I have a problem to deal with. A huge problem, and I’ve put a time stamp on it. One week to make my life right again.