Such a sweet, torturous dream. I tiptoe inside and wish he would be here with me. This room screams togetherness. The view has me daydreaming. The turquoise ocean is everywhere I glance, and the exotic touch holds me captive. As I wander to the ample terrace leading to the pool, greens, palms and coconut trees arise in my line of sight.
Back in the wooden palace, my eyes land in the middle of the room where a Jacuzzi sits, when another thought hits me—we have a history with Jacuzzis. On both sides, two dark red soft couches reside. My cheeks heat, the entire room allures one to spend intimate moments there. The big, wide windows overlook the ocean, and I recline on the couch while fantasizing about Damien. I’m sure my thoughts are written all over my face.
My heart speeds up when behind me, the floor cracks under his heavy steps. I glance up, and he stares at me the way a famished hunter sizes up his next prey. His lust-induced gaze sends shivers down my back.
I stand no chance.
His ripped arms flex when he grips the couch capturing me in between them, his eyes sparkle with mischief, and his husky voice caresses my needy skin.
“Never underestimate the power of a Jacuzzi room, hmm? Why are you flushed, Bria? Some memories coming back?”
I fan myself as he suppresses a grin and babble, “It’s hot in here. Stop wishing.”
“But the air conditioning is on full force.” He points to the corner of the room where an air-conditioner hangs, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement. “You’re such a bad liar.”
I tilt my head my eyes boring into him, but in this position we’re even nearer, and his musky scent slaps my senses stupid.
“Give in, baby. Haven’t we suffered enough? Why do you keep denying us?”
I shut my eyes and purse my lips. “Never, Damien. Never again. Don’t call me that.”
Frustration oozes from him, and his muscles ripple with turmoil. “Then, why do you look at me like you don’t mean what you say? I can hear your heart saying my name, your skin calling mine. You want me as bad as I want you.”
He points out a truth I wish to suppress. “It’s just this stupid room playing havoc with my mind and hormones. It has nothing to do with you, but the lack of a sex life I intend to remedy as soon as possible.”
He stumbles backward, his expression torn.
Why did I say such nonsense? Why do I keep punishing him even though I’d die for him even without his love?
I had to take away his damn control, that’s why. It’s not fair that he stands here all strong while I lose the fight with myself every minute.
My heart rips when I spot his pain-infused eyes. I don’t know what I expected but not his next move.
His lips turn up in defeat. He trudges toward me while I sit down and freeze on the spot. He drops to his knees and spreads my legs. He nudges himself between them, and my pencil skirt slides up my thighs. At his touch, excitement rushes through me. He grazes my bare skin, and sets me alive, and I implode with lust. This man turns me into a babbling mess. I shut my eyes. When I open them, he cradles my face in his strong hands.
“I’d both live and die for you, Bria. I’d give you the world in a heartbeat. I’d love you with every fiber of my being. I’d spend my life making up for the lost time and prove to you that you’re my world, and your heart didn’t make a mistake by choosing me. But it’s not enough for you, you’ll never believe or trust me or my love ever again. Why should you, right? What I have done… how could you forgive me?”
His words yank at my chest. My heart squeezes at the agony lacing his words and the misery burned in his steely eyes. He glues our foreheads together.
“You keep holding onto things I’m incapable of changing. I would rip my heart out of my chest to show you it has only ever beaten for you and no one else. I am so fucking sorry for everything.”
His eyes well up, and my heart clenches in my chest with the hurt enveloping him. “Do you want to fuck? Do you want someone else? Do you want to use and be used? I won’t stop you, but let me tell you, choose him or them well as there’s nothing you can use to clean you after dirty, meaningless sex.
“I know what I’m talking about. I experienced both the pleasure and the relief for a short time. But, when it’s over, you want to crawl out of your skin because it wasn’t with the right person. The heart is a faithful thing and has you dwelling in guilt.” I raise my hands, but he shakes his head at me and crawls up. “You’re free from me. Have it your way. I’m done. I’m fucking done. Congratulations, your wish becomes reality. To your second chance at life without me in it.”
The absence of his touch shoves me into a cold blackness. His hurt tears something in me. He plods away, and my heart wrestles with pain and gets knocked up into a pile of bloody pulp. The door slams shut behind him, and I sink to my knees crying out what’s left of my soul.
I yearn to shout out the truth, that for me there’s only him. Doesn’t he understand it’s only him I’ve ever wanted, but I can’t have?
It’s better this way even though it kills me.
Pain shoots through me, as I wobble up from the floor. I don’t grasp how much time passes, but when I glance outside, only the moon peers behind the sky’s curtain. On shaky limbs, I trudge to find a room but remember my medicine and take a detour.
In the kitchen on the table I find my pills lying next to a glass of water. My hand flies to my mouth to stifle my cries and tears roll down my face. I swallow them. He cares enough even after what I said. I reach the stairs, and spot him in the corners of my eye. He shelters his head in his hands, and an empty glass next to a bottle of whiskey lays discarded on the table. He doesn’t acknowledge me. All I wish for is to comfort him, love him and tell him I didn’t mean what I said.
But instead, I scamper up the stairs, pull the first door open to a room, and crash on the bed crying myself to sleep.
***
The next day flies by fast. The two times I leave my room, he’s nowhere in sight. I catch myself searching for him, not only with my eyes but also with my heart, craving the connection we share.
I can’t find my place as I fidget and try to stay calm when what I desperately need is his nearness and caresses to soothe me. Tropical beauty surrounds me, but without him, there’s nothing—no joy, no beauty, no meaning. The night dawns around me, and I question if he left me here. I don’t trust him anymore.
We had this one chance. We failed again.
I bury my face in my hands and sob for the love I have for him, for a present we won’t share, and for a life we’ll spend asking what if?
This time around, it was me who shut us down. His footsteps halt on my doorstep, and my heart speeds up.
“I am sorry for making you believe I had a life without you in it. I am sorry for everything, but mostly for making you believe I hated you. I wished to, and this is reason alone for you not to forgive me. I don’t deserve it, but I need your forgiveness.”
Please, Damien, come in.
I’m afraid.
Just love me!
But I can’t force my mouth to open. We can’t carry on like this for two weeks. Shouldn’t I listen to what he has to say first, before I decide to end us for good?
The next day, the moment my eyes flutter open my heart wins. I rush two stairs at a time, and my heart bursts when on the kitchen table lays a plate of my kind of breakfast. He really has all my likes saved in his brain as I dig my teeth into a butter croissant with strawberry jam and a glass of orange juice.
My eyes seek him, but he’s nowhere near. I step inside the living room, and on the round table, a white paper glistens under the sun’s rays.
My heart hammers in my chest as I pick it up, my fingers shaking.
Read me. Please.
On the ruins of a shattered love and dying hopes of a healing love, I admit to you, the woman who holds my heart in her palm but is too afraid to keep it. You gave my heart back, but it would never be the same.
I hope you don’t worry or ask yoursel
f if I left you by yourself on the island. You made it clear you don’t think much of me, but some limits even I don’t cross. Your safety and well-being being two.
What you said crushed me. Above everything else I’m a man in love. To hear you admit it isn’t me anymore for you, it’s as if you held a gun in your hand and although aware what you’ll cause, you still put a bullet through my heart. You stared into my eyes, Bria, and eviscerated me. I have to respect it, and I will.
I deserve this! While you deserve an entire world of beauty and happiness, not the pile of bitterness I became. I’m not mad at you, but at myself, always at myself. If there’s someone guilty, it’s me. I don’t deserve redemption, but you do, my love.
I set you free.
Stop thinking of me, and be happy, okay?
Yesterday I wandered until the discomfort in my feet morphed to numbness. At some point, I plopped on a spot in the sand and glanced at the ocean.
I thought of everything we won’t have again. I made a list. Instead of lovers, we’ll become strangers in time. Instead of starting a family together, there will be someone else with whom we’ll build it. Instead of a beginning, there will be the end and not the end I yearned to give you so badly since I can remember—not the happy one but a clear end.
With time, we’ll accept and get over our love even move on. As long as we live, we keep moving in one direction or the other.
I’ll always remember what we had. It’ll be a cruel memory, at least for me. This love I’ll carry within my cells, and it’s also a promise, my love, I’ll never stop loving you even though I’ll have to get over us.
One last time, Bria, I love you! Feel it and tuck it into your heart, baby, as a secret between us, one last intimacy. Loving you, it’s my truth, my credo, my all. I swear.
I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry, but what does it change? Nothing. But still I hope one day you can forgive me.
When I’m old and too tired to give a damn anymore, it’ll be your name I’ll whisper for a final time. It’s the sound of your name I want to take in the afterlife with me, and I’ll beg for one more life for us to work.
This would be my greatest wish, Bria, to get the answer to what if?
If I have a boy, I’ll tell him that in life you regret the loss of the one woman you loved the most. So, don’t be stupid. Make the right choices. Be smart enough to know in this world there’s someone attempting to steal it away because it’s so damn precious. Protect it with everything you have. Don’t take for granted anything, and surely not the love of a woman as from one day to the next, she’ll look at you and see through you, and then you’ll understand you lost her. Why a boy and not a girl? I don’t deserve a girl. You were the most precious one in my life, and I ruined you. I’m a curse to the woman I love. I don’t want that role ever again.
There’ll be a time when I’ll witness you in the arms of someone else. Can you fathom what our glances will tell? If we’re lucky enough, it’ll reveal we made the right choice. The alternative would be too damn painful.
In the end, Bria, I’ll recall everything I’ve done, accomplished, and lived for. I’ll write you then a second letter from a man who has loved you and put you above everything else. I hope you’ll find it in you to believe me, at last. When we’ll both have nothing else to lose anymore, and even after a lifetime without you, you’re the reason I built a life for.
Everything I’ll do will have your signature on it. It’s how I’ll honor this never-ending love, but also never-lived love I have for you. I’ll raise an imaginary temple in honor of you and my love for you where I’ll go whenever I have something to celebrate. I’ll think of you and tell you all about it. Perhaps, at least in this way, I’ll succeed in keeping us alive.
To life, Bria, that it will grant us a small reward for the loss we faced.
To love, as it would be too cruel not to feel it again. Everyone deserves it, especially us for the price we paid in its name.
To strangers, as that’s what we’ll eventually become.
This is me telling you goodbye, the one person I’d never have wished to say it to.
Live and grant this world your smile, beauty, and genius. I believe in you, be whatever you want to be and achieve whatever goal you set in that brilliant mind of yours.
Go conquer the world, Bria. I’d hate to be the one who holds you back.
Forever yours,
Damien
P.S. We’ll find each other again, baby, someday in some other life. Let me love you then, as it would be too cruel to deny me you for a third time.
P.P.S. In my phone, you will find the number of Andrea Daley. She will organize a flight for you as quickly as possible. You can leave in a few hours. I’ll remain. I’m not ready to face a life without you, yet. For a few more days I want to both mourn and gather strength.
My vision blurs, my tears blind and soak the paper. The letter drops from my hands and flutters to the floor after I’ve read it repeatedly. A movie with how my life would unfold without him passes me by, and I shake it off.
I can’t live without him. I tried, but how can I live with myself knowing I let the man I loved with all my heart go and doomed us both to a life in wonder of what if. Him letting me go represents the proof I needed to win against my fears as he put me above him. With this gesture, he set us free. Now, we’re able to start over, the start toward a healing love. I bolt through the door and sprint on the white sand with my heart drumming.
I halt at the vision of him as he stands over a cliff overseeing the ocean, his hands tucked in the pockets of his shorts. The sun kisses his bare chest, and his hair ruffles with the breeze. His rugged beauty enthralls me, and his raw manliness beckons me. I wonder if he realizes his own allure, or what his steel-blue eyes do to me. They make me surrender in the blink of an eye, in a heartbeat.
This man has always been the love of my life, the one who extended his hand to find me in the darkness and pulled me to the light again. It has always been about him, us. As I stare at him, the realization settles in my chest—I belong to him and am his with every beat of my heart, mind, and body.
I reach to him with my heart bursting. Whatever we locked in ourselves—fears, insecurities and years of desolation—we need to let out.
The ultimate test, to either glue us together or tear us apart, for real. My heart aches at taking the latter one into consideration.
His back stiffens as he senses me behind him. I lift my fingers and graze his left shoulder. This time I will let him decide for us to stand on the starting line or end on the finish line. I made my move, now it’s his turn.
BRIA
“I set you free. Why are you still here, Bria, to keep punishing me? For what exactly, anyway, for loving you? I put you above every one of my desires, even my person . . . what else?” His voice breaks. The combination of hurt and disbelief lingers around us, and my words get stuck in my throat. His shoulders sag, and he groans. “Couldn’t live without telling me who will take my place, ha? As if I don’t know who he is already.”
He infuriates me, and I ball my fists beside me. He suffers, but does he have to be like this? We both need to surrender. If not, it won’t be enough for us to move forward.
“You’re not here for me, you never were. This entire love has been all in my head, maybe even one-sided. You’ve never been mine, not as I’ve been yours because then you couldn’t cut me out and start life over.”
I lose any sense of control as I pound my fists against his back. He’s gone too far this time and I feel the rage consume my rationality. My knuckles hurt when he whirls around and grabs my hands.
“Stop.”
I do even though I want to hurt him the way his words hurt me.
“You make me lose my damn mind. You’re cruel.”
I tilt my head to the side nibbling on my lower lip, tasting my salty tears. “Your words . . . how can you?”
He cups my face and rests his forehead on mine. “What should I do, hmm? I’m sorry.
I’ve succumbed to the pain. Losing you transforms me into a bastard.”
But thoughts nag at my mind of being not good enough for him, of all the misery I’ve caused, my heart condition, my name a synonym for pain. I must save him, even from myself. “I’ll leave, it’s for the best.”
I can’t believe I gave in to my insecurities.
One second, confusion swims in his eyes, the next acceptance crosses his face.
“Another goodbye? Maybe this time it’s the final one.” His voice drops to wretched, and his eyes, depths of undiscovered wonders swallow me in.
I whisper to the breeze to carry my message to him, a plea of love, “I love you so much, Damien.” I pause. “Goodbye.”
He grabs my elbow and twirls me around, his eyes pleading with mine.
“Say it again.”
A small smile lifts the corners of my lips, embracing my truth. “I love you. I always have and always will. The way I love you also scares the hell out of me.” I wave my hands in the air and ask, “Are you happy? What now?”
I glance at him as relief transforms his features. His eyes burrow inside me as if I’m what he always searched for and he finally found it. It grounds and humbles me.
“Now, let me love you.”
His hands cage my face, and he slams his lips against mine. His kisses consume me, mark and own me. The intensity ripples against my swollen lips. He ignites a fire inside me no ocean can ever extinguish. My lips flutter in anticipation every time he pauses.
Damien smiles as he knows exactly what he does. If I spend the rest of my life with his lips on mine and his tongue delving into my mouth, I’ll need nothing else. The kiss ends, and I pout, tapping my lips.
“It was acceptable.”
His eyebrows shoot up. I suppress a smile, while he feigns indignation. “Just acceptable?” he banters.
I tilt my head to say, “Acceptable, acceptable. Better?”
Healing Love: A Billionaire Romance (Forever Us Book 2) Page 9
