by Geneva Lee
I didn’t have to look up the address, because I recognized the name of the quiet street in Notting Hill. What I didn’t know was what waited for me if I went there.
There was no doubt that Belle wanted me to stay away because she was angry with Alexander. But the real reason I couldn’t bring myself to go was because as long as I stayed away, the key could open anything. It was pathetic, and I knew it. Still, that small sliver of hope was my lifeline.
“What would you do if you saw him?” she asked, coming to sit next to me.
I shrugged, blowing a thin stream of air through my lips in an effort to steady myself. I’d not yet reached the point where I didn’t want to cry at the mention of him. “Maybe I’d ask him why,” I said in a small voice. “Why he kept seeing me? Why he doesn’t love me?”
Belle draped her arm over my shoulder and hugged me close. “Do you think he’d actually tell you?”
“Probably not,” I admitted. “I feel so stupid for thinking it meant more to him, too.”
“Uh-uh,” Belle clucked. “Falling in love isn’t stupid.”
“It is when you always choose the wrong man,” I said.
“You’re human, Clara, and you’ve made mistakes in the past. But I saw how cautious you were after you left Daniel. If you chose Alexander, there was a reason for it,” she said softly. “Maybe you can’t see that right now, but you will someday. And even if he’s too dense to realize what he had, remember that he helped show you that you are strong. Stronger than you thought.”
“I wish that lesson hadn’t been quite so painful,” I croaked as the tears I’d been fighting broke through.
Belle kissed my cheek. “You’re strong enough to survive this.”
I hoped that she was right. It felt as though I’d walked through fire that stripped my skin and left me exposed.
Raw.
Vulnerable.
Walking, eating, existing—every moment was agonizing. I didn’t feel strong. All I felt was this perpetual cycle of despair. Each morning I remembered that it was over, and my heart shattered again. I spent the day gathering the fragments and trying to piece myself back together. Maybe Belle was right, and I would survive this. Maybe the piercing anguish would fade into the dull ache of regret. But I knew one thing: there was no getting over Alexander.
“I didn’t even see it happening until it was too late. I mean…I guess you never know when you’re making love to someone for the last time.” I couldn’t quite shake the regret I felt over how we’d spent our final moments together.
“It’s cruel,” she agreed.
Opening my fist, I held out the key. “What do I do with this?”
“You know how I feel about it,” she said, “but how do you feel?”
“It’s like I’m clinging to it. As long as I don’t go, it can mean whatever I want it to.”
“That’s no good, darling.”
“I know,” I whispered, “which is why I need to go.”
How could I explain to Belle that I still felt Alexander’s hold on me like the tug of an invisible string? I was bound to him, even as each passing second frayed the edge of that connection. Now all I wanted was to sever it and break free of him. He’d made it clear that he didn’t return my feelings, but it was too late to stop myself from loving him. Holding on to hope was paralyzing me, and with each passing day, I felt the paralysis spreading like poison. It was killing me.
“Do you want me to come with you?” she offered.
I wasn’t surprised that she wanted to tag along, but having a sidekick wasn’t going to make this any easier. “No, I need to face this alone.”
I had the rest of my life to endure alone. I might as well start facing it now.

I was in a cab the next morning before Belle was out of bed. She hadn’t fought me on going, but she was worried and her concern only made me more nervous.
I’d opted for a pair of well-loved jeans and a white tank top. I had no clue what waited for me in Notting Hill, but I sure as hell wasn’t out to impress anyone today. The plan was pretty simple.
Get in. Get out. Get over it.
My breath hitched when the taxi slowed to a stop in front of a gated row home.
“This it, miss?” the cabbie asked.
I couldn’t get a word past the lump in my throat, so I nodded and shoved cash in his hand.
I clutched the key so tightly that it cut into my skin as I approached the house. Behind the gate, there was a garden in full bloom and a stone path that led to red steps and the door beyond. Judging from the water pooling at the edge of the walkway, someone had tended the plants recently. It was likely he or she was still here. My heart jumped in my chest, and I took a deep breath. See if the key works before you get excited, my rational side advised.
I dropped it twice, trying to insert it into the lock with trembling fingers. The key turned and the gate swung open, welcoming me inside the private sanctuary. Pausing amongst the flowers, I couldn’t help wishing I were here under different circumstances. This place was a dream as cozy and inviting as the neighborhood to which it belonged. But right now I was too tense to enjoy it. I’d brought Alexander to Notting Hill, and the memories weighed on me, turning my favorite place into somewhere I wanted to avoid.
I’d come back though. If for no other reason than to push this all into the past. I climbed the steps, resolved to get this over with, but as I reached for the bell, I spotted a red rose tucked into the door handle. I took it gingerly, pricking myself on the thorny stem despite my care. Tears welled in my eyes and blood welled on my fingertip. There was no reason to believe it was for me, but I knew it was. Just as I knew that key was going to unlock the gate. It was the same vibrant scarlet as the one I’d worn in my hair the night of the ball. The night where everything had changed between us.
The door opened, startling me out of the web of memories I’d become trapped in. The sight of him knocked the air from my lungs, and I gasped, tying to remember how to breathe. I’d spent the last two weeks dreaming of his face, but seeing him before me, I realized those fantasies hadn’t even touched on his beauty. The shock of black hair. The perfect lines of his face. The delicious curve of his jaw, the full bow of his lips, and the sapphire eyes that drew me to him, burning me with their intensity as I drowned in them.
Alexander’s shirt was unbuttoned, revealing his chest and six pack. His jeans hung low on his hips. My body betrayed me, responding instinctively to the magnetic energy sizzling between us.
This was a mistake.
Whatever reason he had for asking me to come here, it had been a mistake to come. The tears fell freely down my cheeks, and I didn’t try to stop them. The pressure in my chest built until I heaved with unrestrained yearning.
Alexander reached for my hand, spotting the small wound on my finger. He brought it to his lips and sucked away the blood before placing a gentle kiss on the spot. The gesture was small but not insignificant. When his arm coiled around my waist, I didn’t resist him.
I couldn’t.
So much for being strong, the critical voice in my head sneered.
But his mouth silenced my fears as it pressed against mine. The kiss was tender and hesitant, and his lips moved slowly. Salt mingled with his taste on my tongue, and I pulled away to discover the tears weren’t mine. Alexander dropped to his knees, burying his face against my stomach.
My eyes closed, relishing the peaceful sensation that washed over me. I was desperate for his touch, even though it couldn’t ward off the inevitable.
“You’re thinner.” His tone was measured, but I heard the edge of accusation in it along with something else that sounded a lot like fear.
I had wondered if he would catch the slightly sharper angle of my cheekbones or the tautness of my belly. The color had drained from my world when I left him, and along with it, life’s flavors. I’d been relying on alarms more than I had for a long time, but I was taking care of myself.
“I’m okay,” I
said in a soft voice. “I haven’t had much of an appetite, but I am eating.”
“You can’t…” he choked on the words. “Not because of me. Promise me, Clara.”
His alarm caught me off guard, and I struggled not to read more into his concern. “I promise.”
After a few minutes of silence, I couldn’t wait any longer to understand why he’d asked me to come here. “Where are we?”
Alexander rose to his feet and wove his fingers through mine, leading me though the hallway into a living room. Now that the shock had worn off, I digested my surroundings. The home was fully furnished and artfully decorated with a mixture of antiques and clean, modern touches. A fireplace with an exquisitely carved mantle was the focal point of the living area. A plush, linen-upholstered sofa sat across from it, and the rest of the room combined vintage and contemporary into a warm, welcoming space.
“You’re asking the wrong questions,” he said. My core clenched as I drank in the familiar rasp of his voice. Alexander’s eyes hooded as though sensing my sudden, urgent arousal, but he didn’t make a move.
“Twenty questions again, X?”
He shook his head, his tongue wetting his lips as he did. “No games, poppet.”
I stared around us, trying to comprehend why we were here while fighting the dizzying effect of his presence. I’d been too long without him. Now his nearness was almost overwhelming.
“Why are we here?”
“You’re getting warmer.” He moved close enough to me that I felt his hot, sweet breath on my face.
“Whose house is this?” I asked so quietly that he shouldn’t have been able to hear me.
His mouth dropped to my ear and whispered, “Ours.”
I pushed him away and stared at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Had he lost his mind? “I don’t understand.”
“This is our normal,” he explained, spreading his hands. “This is our sanctuary.”
There were so many questions crowding into my brain that I had a hard time choosing one, but there was one that I couldn’t even guess the answer to. “How?”
“The house is in Norris’s name,” Alexander told me. “I pay for it, of course, but this way we maintain our privacy.”
I walked around the room in a slow circle. Alexander’s eyes followed me, but he hung back as I absorbed what he was telling me.
“You mean to maintain secrecy,” I said, turning back to him.
“Privacy. Secrecy,” he repeated the words with a shrug as though they were the same thing.
The problem was that they weren’t.
“Here we can be Alexander and Clara. Nothing between us,” he continued.
“Except the secrets.”
Alexander crossed to me so swiftly that I barely processed his reaction before his arms were around me. “Not between us. Nothing between us.”
“Oh X,” I sighed. “Everything is between us. Can’t you feel it?”
“I don’t want it to be.” His eyes pleaded with me, and I saw the agony I felt reflected in them.
“Your father expects you to get married. He has it all planned.”And those plans don’t include me.
“I can’t control what he plans, but that doesn’t mean he can force me to do anything.”
“Did you know about his plans?” I asked.
Alexander hesitated, and I already knew his answer before he spoke. “Yes.”
Wrenching away from him, I held out a hand to warn him to stay back. “I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Because I don’t believe loving you is wrong.”
His stance shifted, his eyes going distant. “Perhaps not for you. I stayed away because I felt it was unfair. I felt like I was leading you on.”
“And this isn’t doing just that?” I cried, my heart breaking all over again. I’d given him a chance to fight for me and he’d put up a wall. “Why are we even here?”
“Because I need you.” He spoke harshly. His words indicting me, as if I had tricked him.
“But you don’t love me,” I whispered.
Alexander’s hand ran through his hair as he shook his head. “I told you I don’t do romance. I don’t do long-term.”
“What mixed signals you give me, Your Majesty.” I practically spit his own words back at him. “That’s a dangerous thing to do with a girl like me. What is this? A place to fuck me in? A little hideout your father doesn’t know about so you can keep your tart a secret, because you can’t have me showing up in the press?”
“That’s not what this is!”
“Then tell me what it is,” I pled, my anger faltering, “because I’m trying to understand. I really am.” I was desperate to understand, because even as I stood here so close that I could reach out and touch him, I felt him slipping through my fingers.
Alexander’s jaw tightened, and when he finally turned the full force of his gaze on me, I staggered back a step as it smoldered through me. “Every woman who has ever loved me is dead.”
I broke for him all over again, shaking my head softly. “I’m sorry, X. But I’m not dead. I’m right here—and you can’t make me stop loving you.”
He crossed the distance between us, and I didn’t stop him as he drew me roughly against him, cupping my chin firmly. “I won’t destroy you.”
“You already have,” I whispered.
His hands dropped from me in defeat. “I never meant for this to happen.”
“I know, but I’m a big girl, X,” I told him. “You can’t control me. You can’t control who I love.”
“Stop,” he demanded, and I wasn’t certain if he was ordering me to be quiet or to stop loving him.
I wasn’t capable of either. “That’s why I can’t stay. I can’t pretend that everything’s okay. I can’t pretend not to love you. I think that would hurt worse than leaving you. I’m sorry, X. I can’t be your secret.”
“One night,” he said, his voice simmering with longing. “Stay with me one night and if you can walk away in the morning, I’ll let you go.”
I shook my head even as my earlier words replayed in my mind:you never know when you’re making love to someone for the last time.
“Let me show you,” he said.
Show me what? How it’s going to be? How capable you are of giving me the one thing you say you can never give me? A stronger woman would walk away, but my resolve crumbled under his blazing eyes. If I left now, I would always wonder what would have happened if I had not. Going to bed with him would tear me open and rip out my heart, but the break would be clean. No regrets.
My fingers trembled as I found the hem of my shirt and drew it over my head. Alexander froze, watching me lustily as I stripped off my jeans. My bra and panties followed until I stood before him naked. “One night,” I agreed. Someday he might look back and hear the truth hiding in those simple words.
Alexander swept me from my feet and carried me toward the stairs, his lips pressing urgent kisses to my neck up to my jaw as he trailed his mouth slowly toward mine. Desire ignited in my core as he captured my lips, parting them to plunge his tongue with slow, deep strokes into my mouth. My hands slipped under his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. I ran my fingers along the worst of the scarring that twisted so close to his heart that I felt its steady beat pulsing across the tips.
He wouldn’t let me say the words, but I would show him one last time.
One final night to last a lifetime.
Laying me carefully across the bed, Alexander stole over me. I tugged open his jeans and pushed them down. He kicked them off and moved between my legs, his thick cock finding its way without guidance. I gasped as he entered me with one powerful thrust. His mouth found mine again, and he kissed me, his lips lingering deliberately. Cruising lower, he trailed along the hollow of my neck down to the one between my breasts. He planted a soft kiss there before he caught my nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue over it with languid strokes. My hands fisted into the sheets, arching against him,
frantic for contact.
I needed to feel his skin against mine. One final night of connection.
Alexander’s hips rolled deftly as he speared me, stretching my cleft. I moaned as he pressed harder, fucking me deeper. Then he withdrew from me, and I cried out, hungry and empty. Sitting up on the bed, he slid his hand behind my back and lifted my quivering body to his lap. His hands cradled my back as I sank onto his cock, savoring the delicious ache as I swelled around him. He filled me, and he moved slowly as I adjusted to the pitch of his shaft. It was buried deep inside me, and I circled it as the pressure built through my body.
The position was intimate, and it was impossible to escape each other’s eyes and the questions they held. Alexander wasn’t taking me, he was appealing to me. I felt his confusion as acutely as I felt the fevered heat of his skin. In that moment, it was impossible not to see through one another. Alexander’s hands clutched my back, stilling my movement, and I understood the unspoken request.
He wanted to make it last. One final night of wholeness.
My index finger traced the curve of his face, mapping it. I brushed it over his lips, memorizing their soft fullness. My eyes met his, and I fixed the truth I saw shining from them in my mind as my hands traveled over his body, committing each inch of him to memory. I knew the darkness of parting lay ahead of us. Even as I captured this moment and its beautiful serenity, pain commingled with desire. I gave in, my feelings overpowering me, and rocked urgently against him. Alexander’s arms tightened as his cock drove into me tirelessly. We crashed into one another, colliding and connecting, bridging and breaking. Each touch desperate. Each kiss pleading.
“Say it, Clara,” he coaxed hoarsely.
His wish was my command. One final night of domination.
“Alexander,” I breathed, “I love you.”
His eyes closed as his cock spasmed against my velvet channel, pouring inside me, and I spilled over with him, unwinding in his arms. The pleasure splintered across my limbs in brilliant fireworks that fragmented as they rained through me. I rode the torrent of pleasure as I repeated those words.
