Chapter 252

‘I told you that this had to be different or I would walk away,’ I remind him, shuddering with an emotional inhale, and Alexi lowers his hands slowly. Deliberate, precise movements that have the strange effect of helping me settle too. He’s being careful not to antagonise me and something in his manner is helping me come back down to Earth.

‘I know … I heard you … loud and clear.’ Alexi sounds softer, indulgent maybe. He probably just wants me to stop drawing attention to us and get back in his car, but I’m still wringing myself out, riding the tears and painful stabs to my heart.

‘I will go,’ I add strongly, making it clear that my boundaries are set, and playing with me mentally will cross the line.

‘I know you will. You don’t have to convince me. I don’t doubt it.’ He quietens too, sombre toned and his eyes flicker down to our feet for a moment. A show of submission from him is very rare.

‘I don’t want you to go.’ It’s almost inaudible, he says it so quietly.

‘Then don’t mess with my head, or try to make this more than it is; Business—it’s all we are and it’s the only way this works.’ I lift my chin with one final swift sniff and stubborn is plastered back on my face—emotionally pulling my shit back together and smoothing myself down.

Alexi closes his eyes for a moment, only a second, but I see it and as he exhales slowly, he brings those pale greys up to mine. Although they look foggier storm over the sea right now, and he penetrates me with a loaded look.

‘If that’s what you want … need … to stay. Then that’s what you get from me. I swear.’ He seems resigned to give up which is completely unusual for him.

‘It is!’ I answer shortly, and Alexi, a look of defeat overtaking his face that is alien on him, moves back, gesturing to his abandoned car on the pavement which is drawing a lot of angry looks from pedestrians. Both doors are sitting slightly open and I take another steadying heavy breath to calm my nerves, reeling it all back in with a degree of control before I walk past him and head back to it.

I don’t trust him, but his club is important enough to him that it seems to give me some bargaining power. If he wanted me, he could easily break me like he did so many times before. I just proved that.

Seduction, forcefully ignoring my wishes—He still has the tools.

I don’t get why he seems passive and obedient this time around when I put up my boundaries. Something in our separation changed whatever this is between us and I am not sure it’s just about the club. I am not sure there isn’t something else that I don’t understand, yet.

I get back in the car without fuss, embarrassed by my public meltdown and silent when he joins me in his own seat. Neither of us says anything as we both buckle up and he starts the car again. That strained heaviness back between us.

We continue our drive uptown with very little interaction, but the sizzling atmosphere and weird quiet is thick and imposing. He flicks on the radio, almost to cover the awkwardness and seems introverted and lost in thought. That good old deadpan and unemotional face he wears most of the time taking over, and I revert to inside my head to get myself back on track.

Push away the little scene we had and try to find that part of me that is capable of standing up to him. Despising how he just managed to push me over and shake my emotional foundations. I hate that it’s still in me—that I still care about him so deeply that he can affect me. I can’t deny it after losing my shit so easily.

He still terrifies me, but not in the way he once did. It’s not fear of retribution or fear of how sadistic he can be anymore. It’s the fear of feeling things; that he could pull me down that road to loving him again and break me even harder than he did last time around. It’s the terror that my heart isn’t as closed off and immune as I kept telling myself it was, and being around a different side to Alexi, more than he said we would see each other, is having an effect. He’s weakening my resolve and my heart is starting to remember what it’s like to love him.

He said he would stay away … yet he doesn’t.

He said he wouldn’t touch me … and yet he does.

He said it would be just about business … yet it’s not.

I can’t let him mean something to me once more. I have to find that inner strength and push it all down and learn that when it comes to Alexi Carrero … that ship has long sailed and my heart should go back to sleep in its dark recesses. It’s nothing but a tragedy waiting to happen, and like last time, he would walk away unscathed while I’m left festering in my own misery.

I can’t forget what he did or what he pushed me to do. It’s a deterrent from ever giving him control again.