I'm not smart though. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. All I know is that thinking about Anders is driving me crazy. I'm not moving on with my life, and according to Ryan, neither is he. I need closure of some kind, but I'm not sure why. I just need to see him again. I need to go back to where it all began.
The Billionaires Club looms before me. As I stare up at the large white stone building, I remember how everything started. We were doomed from the beginning, if I'm being honest with myself. I think we both knew that. At least, I did. How I ever fell into the fantasy, I don't understand. But, I did, and it wrecked me, and here we are now.
I don't even go to the front desk when I walk inside. I simply head to the elevator and go ten floors up to where his office is. If he's not there, I'll wait. Or maybe I won't. I haven't decided yet.
My heart pounds in my chest as I stand in front of the door to his office. I can hear his fingers typing away on the keyboard, and though I feel nervous, I also feel determined. I need to do this to get my life back.
I knock, and seconds later I hear him say, “Come in.” Just the sound of his voice makes strange feelings course through me.
I turn the knob and step inside. My eyes immediately lock onto his.
“Tessa?” His voice is surprised at first, but it quickly hardens. “Are you here to bring me a payment for the headboard? I haven't even sent you an invoice yet.”
He hasn't. To be honest, I was starting to think he didn't intend to. Maybe I was wrong. I've been wrong about so many other things.
“The headboard,” I stutter. “Yes. I was wondering why you hadn't sent me an invoice yet.” It's a lie. I could not care less about the headboard. I just wanted to see him.
“You could have just sent me a text.” He pushes his chair away from the desk before lacing his fingers together on his lap.
“I deleted your number.” It's another lie. Not only have I not deleted his number, but I also haven't deleted any of the text messages he last sent me. The words were meant to sting him, but he doesn't seem rattled by them at all.
“Have a seat.” He gestures to the chair on the other side of the desk. Tentatively, I step toward it before sliding down onto the leather. We stare at each other for several moments, and then his expression softens. “I've missed you.”
“You have?” I'm shocked by the confession.
“Yes.” He waits patiently for me to respond. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say. Do I tell them the truth, that I've missed him horribly, or do I try to strike at him again with something else hateful?
“How have you been?” I decide to ask instead.
“Busy, as usual.” He rests back against his chair, staring up at the ceiling as if to tell me silently that The Billionaires Club has been taking up a large amount of his time. I can't tell, however, if he's insinuating that he's been sleeping around. In that moment, I wish I was a mind reader. This is completely awkward. “How have you been?”
“Busy.” I nod, avoiding his gaze.
“Still working at the calendar kiosk?”
“Unfortunately.” I sulk. It feels like I'll never escape the place.
“Well, you'll get out of there eventually, I'm sure.” He smirks, which only pisses me off, as if he's mocking me for being stuck in the pits of mall employment.
“Eventually isn't soon enough,” I grumble.
“So, what are you really here for?” He drops all formalities, leaning forward.
I swallow hard as I stare at him. He looks as handsome as ever in one of his business suits, but I'm not feeling the things I was expecting to feel for him. Lust, yes. Definitely. Warmth, not quite. I'm still angry at him, and the longer I sit in his office, the more I wonder why I came.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing. Ryan said you haven't resumed your usual nightly activities here.” I look around the room, realizing how absolutely stupid that sounds.
“So, you broke up with me because I was having Ryan watch you, and now you're having Ryan watch me. Isn't that an amusing twist?” his tone is laced with sarcasm.
“That's not it at all.” My eyes fall to meet his. Could I have made that sound any worse?
“Really? That's what it sounds like to me. Why does it even matter to you what I'm doing?” He seems so smugly amused that it's making my blood boil. Coming here was a bad idea.
“You know what? Never mind. I don't know why I came here.” I stand abruptly to leave. I don't want to be in his presence anymore.
Anders rounds his desk in an instant, trapping me in his arms from behind. It feels strange to be so close to him again. I'm absolutely disgusted by his touch, and I feel suffocated. The scent of his cologne carries over my shoulder, and my mind instantly plays a montage of every time we've ever been in bed together.
“Don't leave. Not yet,” he whispers into my ear, causing a shiver to roll down my spine.“Because I've missed you.” I can feel his breath dangerously close to my face. I put my hands on his arms and pry them from around my waist before pulling out of his grasp completely.
“You should have thought about how much you'd miss me before you had Ryan spy on me,” I snap, though I don't know why. The logic inside of me is fading, quickly being replaced by the raw emotion of my conflicting feelings.
“You didn't come here about the headboard.” He stands firm, staring down at me with a strange imposing dominance.
“What did I come here for then?” I don't even know anymore.
“You came here because you miss me just as much as I miss you. Don't deny it. You've been miserable without me.”
“And how would you know that?” I practically scream. “Have you been having the janitor at the mall spy on me too?”
“What?” He knits his eyebrows, obviously offended by the accusation.
“Never mind.” I wave my hand in front of me as if to push away all the stupid things I've said. “I shouldn't have come here. We're over. That's all that matters.”
“Tessa, wait,” he says as he sees me take long strides towards the door, but I'm already gone.
***
“You're addicted to his dick. That's why you went back,” Evelyn tries to explain my irrational behavior to me over breakfast.
“No.” I shake my head. “I didn't even have his dick when I saw him.”
“But you wanted it.” She points her fork at me. She's over being grumpy at my constant bad moods. Now, she just makes fun of me for it.
“I wouldn't say that.” I shift in my chair, taking another bite of egg, though I'm beginning to feel nauseous.
“Oh, bullshit. That's the only reason a woman would keep going after a guy like that. The sex was too good. I remember all the nights of sitting in the living room watching television to the background music of 'Oh, Anders. Just like that. Oh, you're going to make me come!'” She does her best impression of me, and I burst out laughing, sending a spray of saliva and egg particles all over the table between us.
“Oh my God, I'm so sorry.” I quickly cover my mouth with my hand before grabbing a napkin to wipe up the mess.
Evelyn makes a disgusted face. “No need for special effects.”
“You're horrible.” I shake my head at her as I finish cleaning up the last bit of egg.
“I'm just calling it like I see it. A spade is a spade, and that guy can obviously fuck.”
“That's not why I went to see him.” I can't keep the grin off my face, thinking about how crude she's being.
“Pfft. Bullshit. You secretly wanted this.” She picks up her breakfast sausage with her fork, gestures towards me with it, and then takes a bite.
“I went because I needed closure.”
“And did you get it?”
“No.” I frown.
“See. You went because you're a lovesick idiot. There's no other excuse.”
“Maybe I am.” My stomach turns suddenly, cutting off my words. A wave of nausea hits me like a punch to the gut, and I immediately rush to the garbage can in the kitchen to throw up what little bit I've eaten.
Evelyn follows with a concerned look on her face. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I pant, staring into the garbage can for a moment longer to make sure I don't have another bout of surprise vomiting.
“You don't look like you feel alright.” She hands me a dishtowel to wipe my mouth off.
“I felt fine until a few seconds ago.” I straighten myself and rub my stomach. There's not even a trace of nausea left behind.
“Well, it's not the food. I feel fine. Maybe you're pregnant.” She shrugs.
My mind fills with horror. No. That's not it. That can't be it.
“I don't think so. I just had my period,” I tell her.
“Well, you might want to pick up a pregnancy test after work, just in case.”
***
I really don't want to know. My life has been so screwed up lately. That would just be the icing on my cake of misery. I decide to pass up going to the store to get a pregnancy test and head straight home after work instead. If I am pregnant, the morning sickness will surely manifest again. I pray that it doesn't. The last thing I need is to wind up pregnant when I can't even afford to support myself. And I definitely don't want a kid with him.
Speak of the devil. When I drive through the neighborhood towards Evelyn's house, I see Anders' yellow sports car parked in the driveway. I audibly groan and consider driving past the house and going . . . I don't know where. Just anywhere that he's not. But after an eight-hour day of standing on my feet and hocking calenders, I really just want to go home. Plus, I am kind of curious what he's doing there.
I grumble to myself as I park on the curb. The jackass took the liberty of parking in my spot. How inconsiderate of him. Then again, consideration for others has never been one of his strong points.
When I walk into the house, Anders is nowhere to be seen. Evelyn makes an apologetic face to me. “He's in your bedroom. I told him to beat it, but he wouldn't leave.”
“You actually let him inside?!”
“He was being pushy,” she grumbles.
He's good at that. He's a pushy man. An annoyingly pushy man.
This is not something I want to deal with when I'm exhausted from work. With a scowl deep enough to crack my face, I take long strides to my bedroom, throw open the door, point to the front of the house, and say, “Leave.”
He's lounging on my bed watching television, looking completely relaxed with his arms behind his head and his legs crossed. He's not even wearing any shoes; that's how comfortable he is. I can't help but wonder how long he's been here.
“Well hello to you too.” He straightens himself and kicks his feet over the side of the bed to sit up.
It doesn't look like he plans to leave, so I take a few steps inside and close the door behind myself. Evelyn and Martin don't need to hear our business, no matter how brief it is. I glare down at him as if I could catch him on fire with my eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“You made the first move. I'm making the second.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” I jerk my head slightly, showing my exasperation.
“You came to my office because you missed me. I came here because I miss you.” He stands and takes a step towards me. I shrink back, feeling like prey trapped in a room with a predator. That's what he is, after all, a predator to my heart. “You know, you should really stop pretending you hate me. We both know it isn't true.”
“I do hate you.” I look away from him. I don't hate him, but I wish I did.
“No, Tessa. You don't.” His hand reaches up to caress my cheek, and I quickly swat it away, sidestepping him so that I can get some space. His presence is suffocating.
“Get out of here. I told you that I don't want to see you anymore.” I try to pretend like I'm ignoring him by setting my purse on my desk and rummaging through it for my ChapStick.
“I believe you said that at my loft too, yet you showed up at The Billionaires Club. You didn't have any money for me, so logic dictates that you just wanted to see me.” He turns to me and crosses his arms over his chest, sounding a bit annoyed but looking as serious as ever.
“I showed up because I don't have your number anymore and was wondering why you hadn't sent me an invoice,” I remind him.
He approaches me again, and again I tense. I completely expect him to try to touch me, but instead of putting his arms around me, or pressing his body against mine, or anything else that is characteristic of his typical actions, he reaches next to my purse and snatches my phone off the table.
My mind switches from nervous mode to panic mode in half a heartbeat. He's going to look through my texts and see everything that Ryan and I have said to one another.
“Give it back now, Anders.” I try to retrieve the phone from him, but he's holding it high above his head, tapping the buttons to get to my contacts list. As soon as he finds his number still intact, he tosses the phone onto the bed. I quickly run to reclaim it as if it's something precious to me.
“For all the bitching you did about me lying.” He leans against the door, frowning at me. “I think we're even now, Tessa.”
“That was an invasion of my privacy,” I practically spit at him. My body is so overwhelmed with emotion that I don't know up from down. I'm angry that he took my phone. Ashamed that he caught me in a lie. Embarrassed that he knows the truth of why I really went to The Billionaires Club to see him.
“And tying a man to a bed and leaving him there is a crime. Neither one of us is innocent in this.”
I cringe at the reminder. Good God, we've been horrible to each other. At this point, I think I might have even been worse to him. Why would he want me anymore?
“I can't do this, Anders.” I shake my head, calming a bit. Our relationship has been so fucked up. So wrong. There's no coming back from the things we've done. We're bad for each other.
“I love you, Tessa,” his voice softens. “If I could take it all back and start over again, I would. But life doesn't work that way. Sure, it's probably going to take a while for you to trust me again, and I damn sure am never letting any woman tie me to a bed again, but I still think we can salvage this.”
“We can't.” I can't even look at him. My heart throbs in pain, not just from the memory of the things he's done to me, but also the things I've done to him. It hurts to know he's ruined me. He's driven me to do messed up things I never thought were in my nature. He's corrupted me on a level that might not ever be healed.
Anders drops to one knee in front of me, taking my hand in his. “Please, Tessa. Give us another chance.”
I slowly pull my hand from his grasp, feeling the warmth of his fingers leave me. Everything around me is cold. “No, Anders. We've both run out of chances.”