by Penelope Sky
“My boys had baseball camp all day. Thankfully, the weather has cooled down. Otherwise, it would be unbearable.” He felt the fabric in his hands before he set it aside. “Glad to see you’re finally moving on.”
I stared at him blankly, unsure what he meant by that. “Sorry?”
He grabbed the newspaper and handed it to me. “There’s an article about you and the new guy you’re seeing.”
My fingertips immediately went numb, and when I grabbed the paper, I could barely feel it. I looked at the pictures, seeing one of us in the park, at the restaurant, and even walking into his apartment. We were smiling in almost every photograph, looking happy together like a couple in love. The article was longer than it should be, talking about the seriousness of our relationship and how Conway Barsetti was a thing of the past.
Being famous sucked.
I wondered what Conway would think if he saw this, especially since it wasn’t true, but then I realized it didn’t matter.
He’d been with dozens of women already.
I was the one who took forever to finally move on.
9
Conway
My father’s word sank deep into me, but I still didn’t do anything about it.
I’d made my choice.
Another three weeks had passed, and I was just as miserable as I was before.
Nicole started to pressure me about new pieces, but I didn’t have a single design ready. I still hadn’t slept with anyone because jerking off to Muse was a lot more pleasurable than fucking a stranger. I stopped going out with Carter because I didn’t want to bother making small talk with a woman I would never take home.
Vanessa was still pissed at me.
Marco was disappointed.
My entire life had been irrevocably changed. Muse affected so many people, and now that she was gone, people were angry. They missed her.
Fuck, I missed her.
Maybe my father was right. Maybe everyone was right.
But was it too late?
Carter stopped by in the middle of the day on Tuesday. He never did that because he was too busy with all of his business projects. But ever since Muse left, he checked on me. He tried to be discreet about it, but I knew exactly what he was doing.
He stepped inside my office, a newspaper tucked under his arm.
“Scotch?” I asked.
“It’s ten.”
“So?” I poured myself a glass, having no concept of time anymore. All I could truly sense was the rising and setting of the sun. I knew when it was daytime and when it was nighttime, but that was it.
He sat across from me then touched the newspaper with his fingertips.
I stared at him. “What is it, Carter?”
“I’m not sure if I should show this to you…or if it’ll make any kind of a difference.” He tossed the newspaper onto the table.
My eyes spotted Muse right away, but she wasn’t alone.
She was with some six-foot-three good-looking guy. With blue eyes, a muscular physique, and a charming smile, he was the definition of a pretty boy. His arm was around her at the park, and then they were huddled close together over dinner. The last picture was the two of them entering his apartment on Park Avenue—so he was wealthy.
I already felt like shit, but this dragged me down to a whole new level.
Fuck.
She was seeing someone.
I scanned through the article and picked up on a few things. It discussed their relationship, that they’d been seen out together for the past month. He owned a few gyms, but other than that, they didn’t have any other important information.
I turned it over and set it back on the table.
Carter stared at me, as if he waited for me to unleash my rampage.
I was sick to my stomach, weak, and dead inside. The jealousy I felt was something I’d never known before. It was powerful, terrifying, and sickening. I wanted to rip this guy’s eyes out and feed them to a dog. I wanted to crush his skull underneath my shoe. I didn’t give a damn how nice he was.
He wasn’t good enough for her.
Carter shook his head slightly as he stared at me. “Looks like you waited too long.”
I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.
Once the adrenaline set in, my heart pounded nonstop. I didn’t sleep because I was too livid to feel tired. All I felt was pain, the kind of torture that made powerful men crack. I was devastated, so hurt I could barely suck in a breath.
I didn’t think twice before I ordered my jet to be prepared for the voyage to New York.
I landed at three in the morning, when the city was the quietest—even though it never slept.
I didn’t know what my purpose was, what I hoped to accomplish. If she was seeing this handsome guy, she’d obviously moved on from me. It’s been almost three months in total since she sped off into the night in my Ferrari.
It wasn’t like she didn’t wait long enough.
But this still felt like a betrayal—a horrid heartbreak.
I should just go to the hotel and rest until morning, but I couldn’t do that. I had to see her right that second. Maybe she was staying at her boyfriend’s place, or better yet, he was staying at hers.
I’d love to come face-to-face with him.
And murder him.
I got into her building and arrived at her front door. I stared at the hardwood, debating whether I should do this or not. What was the purpose of this anyway? I couldn’t get angry at her when she did nothing wrong. She didn’t owe me anything, so this wasn’t a betrayal. I was the one who broke her heart.
Not the other way around.
Even though I’d been killed in the process.
My finger hit the doorbell.
Now, all I had to do was wait. The damage had been done, and the ball was rolling.
I waited for a long time before I heard her footsteps hit the hardwood floor in her apartment. If she was dressed in just his t-shirt, I’d punch a hole through the wall. My hands tightened into fists just from thinking about it.
When her footsteps stopped, I knew she was standing at the door—looking through the peephole.
Looking at me.
The door cracked open, and her shocked expression looked into mine. Her eyebrows were high off her face, her skin was pale like milk, and her hair was pulled back into a loose bun. She kept one hand on the door as she looked at me, either because she was prepared to shut it in my face or she needed it for balance.
Now I had her attention. But I didn’t know what to do with it.
“Conway…what are you doing here? It’s almost four in the morning.”
I invited myself inside and yanked the door from her grasp. I shut it behind me. “Is he here?” I stepped into her apartment and scanned the room, expecting to see a large, muscular man ready to rush me. If he was there, I’d be even angrier. How could he let her open the door by herself? Even if she lived in a nice building, this was still New York. Crazy shit happened every night.
“Who?”
I turned my fierce gaze on her. “Don’t play that fucking game.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze narrowing on my face. “If this is a joke, it’s a bad one.”
“Do you see me laughing?” Another sweep of the apartment told me there wasn’t any sign of him, of his shoes kicked off on the rug or his jacket hanging from the back of a chair. He would have come out of the bedroom at the sound of our voices by now.
“Conway.” She slowly crept into the living room, eyeing me with sheer disappointment. She was in a long t-shirt that reached her knees, covering her bottom. It was a man’s t-shirt, and I wondered if it was his. “You’re absolutely pathetic. I can’t believe I ever respected you.”
Like she’d punched me in the gut, I was winded.
“You break my heart and then have the nerve to throw a tantrum when I start seeing someone? Are you two? I don’t owe you a goddamn thing, Conway. I told you I loved you and I wanted to marry you
, but you left anyway. You have no right to be jealous. You have no right to show up on my doorstep at four in the morning huffing and puffing. Now get the fuck out of my apartment and don’t come back.”
I’d taken a bad situation and made it worse. Now she despised me even more. I’d waited too long to get my shit together, and I’d pushed away the one woman I adored. Now she was sleeping in someone else’s arms.
Because I was a fucking idiot.
“Go, Conway.” It was the second time she’d asked me to leave.
But I didn’t move. I stayed still, feeling the searing pain across my heart. I wanted to be the man between her legs. I wanted to be the designer who used her for inspiration every day. I wanted her to live in my mansion, enjoying a life of luxury only I could provide. “I’m sorry—”
“I don’t care. Please leave. I can’t even look at you right now…” She stepped back, putting more distance between us. “I’ll call the cops if I have to.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to think of the right thing to say. I didn’t come here with a plan, so coming up with something on the spot was difficult. My chest swirled with emotions, but I couldn’t articulate them. “Muse, let me tell you what my life has been like for the past three months.”
She didn’t ask me to leave again, but her guard was still up.
“I’ve been miserable.” I slid my hands into my pockets. “The bed we used to sleep in together has never felt more uncomfortable. I hardly sleep. I don’t eat. Dante is constantly trying to shove food down my throat because I’m getting thinner by the week. Nicole is pestering me to submit a new line of designs, but I haven’t sketched a single idea. I spend my nights with my scotch and stare at the fireplace. I think of you constantly. My father told me to get my shit together and get you back, but I was too stubborn to listen. Vanessa is pissed at me. Carter thinks I’m an idiot. My whole world has fallen apart since you’ve been gone. There hasn’t been anyone else…” I watched the way her eyes changed, the slight look of relief. “I’ve gone out with the intention of picking up a random woman, but I always go home alone. I jerk off to the lingerie pictures of you I see in magazines…” I felt like a teenage boy doing it, but it was still better than fucking a stranger. I should feel ashamed for saying the truth out loud, but I didn’t. “I keep telling myself this is the only option, but this option has left me devastated. When Carter showed me the article with you and…him, something snapped inside me. It kills me to see you with someone else. It kills me because…I miss you so goddamn much.”
She tilted her head slightly as she examined me, the ferocity slowly fading away.
“I don’t know what I expected to accomplish by coming here tonight. But…I wasn’t thinking.”
The silence fell between us, and she kept staring at me like she was waiting for me to say something else.
But that was it. I had nothing else to say.
“What do you want, Conway?” she whispered. “Do you want me to pack up my things and fly home with you right now?”
It would be a dream come true. “Yes.”
“Well, you know what I want. That hasn’t changed.” She stared at me with her pretty eyes, pressuring me to say the words she wanted to hear.
I held her gaze but remained silent.
“You still won’t give me what I want…”
I already knew how I felt about her. It was perfectly clear. I could keep fighting it, but that hadn’t gotten me anywhere. The last three months had been wasted in a painful depression. I’d never been so low in my life. I was happy before this woman walked into my life, but now that she was gone, I couldn’t find happiness again.
Because she was my happiness.
I walked across the room toward her, my hands shaking with anticipation. It’d been so long since I’d held her, so long since I’d touched her. I missed those lips against mine. I missed the way her fingers glided through my hair when I made love to her. I missed having my woman beside me in bed every single night.
I stopped in front of her and slid my hand under the fall of her hair. I felt her stiffen at my touch, felt her breathing quicken once we were connected again. She didn’t pull away, but I could still see the trepidation in her eyes. I’d hurt her so many times, and now she was afraid I would hurt her again. “I don’t want to love you. I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to sit around my house and think about our trip to Greece. I don’t want to touch myself to the memory of you when I want the real thing. I don’t want you to have this power over me, this hold over my happiness. If I could, I would forget about you and fill my bed with women I’ll never remember. But I can’t…because you’re a part of me now. Even when you’ve been on the other side of the world, I’ve been committed to you. I’ve worried about you. I’ve dreamed about you, wished you were mine again. So I can’t keep lying to myself anymore. I can’t keep lying to you—to the entire world.” Both of my palms cupped her cheeks, and I forced her gaze on me, our eyes connected in intensity. “I love you, Muse. I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you. You became my muse, my obsession, and then the love of my life. So please, tell me you still love me. Tell me I’m not too late.”
She closed her eyes for a brief moment, the corners of her mouth rising in a smile. When she opened her eyes again, the moisture had coated their surface, and now the tears dripped down her face. “It’s never too late, Conway. Not with you.”
My hands gripped her tighter, and the pain that had clutched my heart for months released at last. I pressed my forehead to hers and finally felt at peace. I felt my hands stop shaking. I felt the wounds in my heart turn to scar tissue. I’d dreaded this moment for so long, but now that it was finally here, it was euphoric.
It felt right.
“I love you too, Conway.”
I grabbed her t-shirt and pulled it over her head, revealing nothing but her skin. I tossed the shirt on the ground, wanting her to never have anything to do with that pretty boy ever again. She belonged to me, and if that asshole came anywhere near her, I’d kill him. “End it with him. And throw his shit out.”
Instead of flinching at my hostility, she smiled.
“What?”
“That’s your shirt, Conway. Not his.”
My eyes narrowed on hers, feeling a surge of relief run through me. “You’re still wearing my shirts to bed?”
“I’ve always worn your shirts to bed.”
I pulled her hips into me and kissed her, melting into her deep embrace. It was the affection I’d been missing, the affection I lived for. It made me feel alive, gave me more joy than all of my success. She was mine again, and I would make sure I never had to live without her.
Because I’d rather be dead than live without her again.
I lay beside her in bed. Stripped down to my boxers, I held her tightly against me. She had a queen-sized bed, and her master bedroom held the elegance of a queen. In shades of pink and white, it complemented her presence perfectly.
My fingers moved through her hair as I stared at her, examining the softness of her features. As much as I wanted to be buried between her legs, I knew that was off-limits for the night. “Break up with him in the morning.”
“It is morning.”
“Then break up with him now.”
Her fingers moved down my hard chest. “I’m not sure if I should tell you this or not…”
“What?” I whispered.
“Well…I was never dating Nox—”
“I don’t want to hear his name.”
Her smile widened. “So jealous…I like it.”
I hated it.
“I was never dating him. I haven’t even kissed him, Conway.”
My eyes narrowed, and my sense of relief was flooded with confusion. “What does that mean?”
“He asked me out a month ago, but I told him I wasn’t ready to date. So we’ve been hanging out as friends. He said he was willing to wait until I was over you.”
Because he knew she
was a serious catch. Even if she was in love with another guy, she was still a goddess. I would have done the same thing. “So you’ve never slept with him?”
“No.”
“Or kissed him?”
“No. The most he’s ever done is wrap his arm around my shoulder.”
I growled.
She chuckled in my face. “Get over yourself, Con.”
So this woman was still mine. She’d always been mine. I flew across the world because my jealousy clouded my judgment. I came to claim my woman so no one else could have her. It was reckless and stupid, but perhaps I needed to be reckless and stupid.
“If I’d known all I had to do to get you over here was make you jealous, I would have done something a long time ago.”
And I wished she had. “Then you’ve always been mine.”
“Always, Con.”
I rolled on top of her, watching her eyes light up as I separated her legs. My hard cock pressed against her body through my boxers and her panties. I ground against her slowly, watching her eyes darken in arousal.
Her fingers slowly slid through my hair, and she stared at my lips, waiting for a kiss.
I hadn’t been with her in so long that I knew my performance would be laughable. I already wanted to come just from grinding against her. The shape of her mouth made my cock harden. The pretty look in her eyes made me twitch. Everything about her got me rock-hard.
Not to mention the fact that I loved her.
She reached for my boxers and tugged them down, letting my big cock come free. “Make love to me, Conway.”
My balls tightened against my body, and a quiet growl escaped my lips.
“And tell me you love me at the same time.” She pulled her panties down her thighs then pushed them to her ankles. Then she spread her legs for me again, parting them wide so she could take me.
Fuck.
I moved on top of her and watched her lie back on the pillow. My crown oozed with my arousal, and I could barely breathe knowing how slick her pussy was at that moment. Three months of jerking off to a woman I lost made me painfully horny. Instead of picking up some random woman who wouldn’t satisfy me, I’d pretended this woman was still mine.
