My Love Break

by Antonia, Anna

  “Then tell me.”

  Risa twisted her arm, trying her damnedest to get away. I tightened my hold until she stopped. Risa then raised her hand up like she wanted to slap me.

  I welcomed it.

  Not because I’d ever hit her back. No, I’d welcome it because I wanted her to lose control. I needed her to do it. Anything other than this bloodless thing where she looked right through me.

  Where she saw me as the man who disappointed her the most.

  Risa dropped her free hand and snarled, “I won’t let you do this to me, Damian. I won’t let you pull me into your fucked-up world where you keep me only when it pleases you. I’m done being patient. You have me always or not at all.”

  Habit dictated my response.

  “You do not make the rules here, Risa. I do.”

  Risa bit back whatever she would’ve said. She turned her face away but not before I saw the angry desire burning a march over her expression.

  I knew the expression and what it meant because I’d felt it every day since I realized I couldn’t remember who this beautiful girl was to me.

  I gentled my hold, letting my fingers stroke her soft skin. Her body trembled beneath my hand. She begged to be tamed. I heard the call.

  “Risa, look at me.”

  She wouldn’t. “Damian.”

  I could barely hear her. I leaned down.

  “What is it, little girl?” The endearment rolled off my tongue so easily again. I’d call her that a thousand times if it made her happy.

  “I’m not a toy for you to put away whenever you get bored.”

  “You never bore me.”

  “But I am a toy to you.”

  The thoughts that wreaked havoc in her brain had to be stopped.

  “I’m a grown man, Risa. I don’t play with toys.”

  There. That should satisfy her.

  “Then what do you call this?” She reached out with a small hand. The heat from her touch swam into me. “Why am I here?”

  “I need you to be available for the work I do.”

  If I could hear the hollowness of that excuse then so could she.

  “Don’t lie, Damian. Not to me.”

  There it was again. Disappointment.

  Things were running out of control. I had to correct the course.

  “Risa, did you forget about dinner tonight? I have a chef on his way. Why don’t we play hookie tonight? I cancel my event and you cancel yours. We’ll make a quiet evening of it.”

  “Just be honest with me. Please.”

  I carefully took my hands off her, afraid that any faster would shatter Risa. I didn’t want her to pursue this. Not now.

  Not until I pinned down exactly what happened to me and my father, and who exactly was responsible. Maybe not even then.

  “I can’t.”

  Risa frowned, obviously angry. “You won’t.”

  “It is as I said, Risa. I can’t.”

  Defeated, she removed her hand from my cheek. Risa stood there, looking up at me as if trying to memorize this moment.

  Or maybe she was waiting for me to relent.

  My instinct wanted to right this. Yet, what could I do? A lie would save her where a truth would damn us both.

  “Then there’s nothing left to say, Damian.”

  Words failed me. I didn’t know what this was but I knew what it wasn’t.

  She wasn’t something to be broken and tossed away. Risa was the object of my fixation and affection. Both things were equally important to me.

  I wasn’t going to lose her. Not like this. I wouldn’t be replaced. Not by her indifference nor by her assumptions.

  “Tell me what else you want, little girl. Tell me and it’s yours.”

  She flinched but then drew her shoulders back. “If you won’t keep me, if you won’t let yourself choose me, then you can’t have me.”

  Unacceptable.

  “And I say I can. You want it, Risa. You want me.” I raked her with my gaze. “The way you’re dressed tonight proves it.”

  “I’m dressed to go out. Not to stay in with you.”

  “You picked this out,” I skimmed my hand down her waist, “just to punish me.”

  “And I say that it’s just a dress.”

  My blood ran high when she refused to back down.

  “If your intent is to anger me—you’re succeeding. If it’s to fool me into believing what you’re saying—you’re failing. Tell the truth and do not even think of lying to me, Risa. Is all this because I wouldn’t give in last night?”

  I was unfair by demanding her truth when I wouldn’t give her mine. I didn’t give a damn though. I’d find her weak spot and push it until she submitted.

  Risa’s mouth twisted into something sad. “Give in?”

  “Yes. Give in. Something you’ll learn about me, Risa, is that I don’t give in.”

  “I’m fairly aware of that, Mr. Black-Price.”

  Disappointed, I released her. “Cut the formal bullshit. You don’t need to hide behind it.”

  “Just as you don’t hide behind Gretchen.”

  I couldn’t deny it.

  Risa scored a hit and knew it. She edged close to me. I wanted to tug her closer. Almost as bad as I wanted to kiss her.

  “Isn’t there something, anything, about us that speaks to you? Isn’t there some part of you that feels there’s more to us than this?”

  Yes. Fuck yes.

  I wasn’t tied to Gretchen. Not by anything more than past memories and current subterfuge. I could take the sweetness Risa offered me.

  I could break my rules.

  I could be different.

  I could take a chance and keep Risa. She wouldn’t have to know about anything. She could just take me as Damian Black-Price. I could be her billionaire lover who spoiled her mercilessly.

  It could be a good life.

  Perfect in fact.

  50

  RISA

  Strange how I nearly managed a coup.

  I could see Damian coming closer to my line. He wanted me. Punish, tame, love—it didn’t matter. I just knew he was coming for me.

  Damian was choosing me.

  Not his rules. Not what he believed he had with Gretchen.

  Me.

  Victory would’ve been sweet.

  It would’ve been if his cell phone didn’t ring.

  Gaze locked on mine, Damian slid his hand into his pocket and then pulled it out. The phone stopped and then rang again.

  Again and again.

  Neither of us would speak, especially not with my question hanging in the air.

  Finally, Damian made his decision. He answered the phone with a curt, “What?” Silence and then, “Gretchen was to wait until I came for her.”

  My mouth curled into a bittersweet smile full of regret. I learned it too late. Nothing changed. It was always the same.

  Memories of that long-ago date where I first saw Gretchen mixed with the first night I slept with Damian and lost my soul.

  We were damned to always wait for this man. Moths to the cold flame of his heart, we waited for him to love us, to remember us, to lose us.

  Loving Damian was pain and pleasure. The more pain I suffered the greater the reward.

  I wanted to win him back to me, but at what cost?

  Something has to give.

  Taking advantage of Damian’s distraction, I unlocked the door and walked out. It was barely better than the night I last left him. At least this time I wasn’t a coward. I spoke from my heart. Too bad for me he couldn’t answer in kind.

  “Risa!”

  I kept going. Maybe he’d catch me by the private elevator. Maybe then Damian would pick me up and throw me onto his bed. Maybe there’d be a needle filled with a colorless lullaby. Maybe I’d wake up far from here, trapped by his arrogance and my stubbornness.

  Please. Let’s do it all over again. I’ll get it right this time. I swear.

  Damian reached me just as the doors slid open. Gretchen a
nd Leon were there, beautiful as a painting. Fire and the sun. Perfect.

  They stepped out. The four of us stood in the foyer, silent and waiting.

  Always waiting.

  “It’s like life, little girl. It hurts at first but then it’s all worth it.”

  The course of Damian and Risa had been forever altered the fateful night he almost died. We couldn’t go back. We couldn’t recapture who we were.

  No matter how much I wished it, no matter how perfect I tried to be, I couldn’t change this.

  My ankle throbbed from the ghostly sensation of a chain that would never be there again. I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of its loss crush me.

  Something has to give.

  I straightened my shoulders and swept my gaze across them all. “I’m on my way out. Please enjoy your evening.”

  “Risa, don’t you dare!” Damian snapped, uncaring of our audience.

  I stepped around Leon and pushed the button. The elevators opened with a well-mannered hiss. I stepped in and turned around.

  Damian lunged for me only to have Leon block his way.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Leon broke from tradition and spoke in English. “You have to let her go.”

  I received the message loud and clear. Especially since Damian could’ve easily broken free from the blond bodyguard.

  He didn’t. Instead, he watched me leave. The very thing he wouldn’t do before.

  The doors closed. I stood upright in the storm of my emotional winter.

  “Because I want forever with you, Risa.”

  I wanted to believe those words were still true. I wanted to believe them even though Damian had let me go.

  I walked out of the building and entered a world where I was free to go wherever I wanted.

  No one would stop me from bedding the first man who reminded me of who I’d lost.

  No one would stop me from boarding a plane and flying away from this madness.

  No one would stop me from doing anything.

  My hand drifted across my heart. I was right that long ago first night. I learned to make very good friends with pain.

  So now what?

  Continue Risa and Damian’s dark romance in “My Love Regret”

  Coming 2016

  MORE ANNA ANTONIA

  Marcus’s Mercy (A Dark Romance Serial)

  Marcus’s Mercy #1

  Marcus’s Mercy #2

  Marcus’s Mercy #3

  Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Love Series

  Mad for You

  First Night (A Mad for You Short)

  First Lines (A Mad for You Short)

  Bad for You

  Dangerous for You

  All to Love You

  Dark Romance Collection

  Under His Hand

  Rebecca and Trevor

  Being Trevor’s – A Novella

  My Love Series

  My Love Forgive

  My Love Break

  My Love Regret (Upcoming)

  ABOUT ANNA ANTONIA

  Anna is a lover of all things dark and passionate. Living in the Southeastern United States, she enjoys antiquing, DIY thrift store finds, sedate hiking along trails, and spending time with her family and menagerie of pets. Being the only girl in a household full of men makes it hard to always be a lady, but she gives it a good old college try.

  Website: http://anna-antonia.com

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