“Good morning my ass!” I slammed the door shut behind me.
“Is there a problem?”
“You bet your ass there’s a problem!”
“You need to watch your damn tone when you speak to me. You don’t have to yell. I’m sitting right here.”
“Julian, you’re lucky the only thing I’m doing is yelling at you and not punching you in the face!”
“Oh, so now I’m suddenly Julian again?”
“I’m going to fucking murder you.” I threw the article at him. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s The New York Times interview I did for you,” he emphasized the last two words with a conniving grin. “You said you wanted me to be honest with the public. Share my past, my history, show them the man I used to be.”
“That is not what I meant, and you know it! You sharing your past has nothing to do with me.”
“But you’re such a big part of it.”
Ignoring his statement, I argued, “We’re not a couple, Mr. Locke. Why on earth would you lie about us?”
“Do I need a reason?” He nonchalantly placed his cell phone inside his suit jacket before leaning forward, setting his elbows on his knees. “I thought you wanted people talking? Rumors are the best publicity. Your words, kid.”
I glared at him. “Rumors for your announcement, not rumors for our relationship!”
“You didn’t specify, Miss Troy. But since you need a reason, how about this one? After your encounters with men yesterday, I decided to take matters into my own hands to prevent any future indiscretions playing out in front of me.”
My mouth dropped open. “You lied to the world because you were jealous? What kind of fucked up excuse is that?”
“The only one I have.”
“You can’t do this!”
“I already did.”
“Fine. I’ll just deny your allegations.”
“Making me look like a liar when I need people to trust me isn’t going to sit well with your promotion.”
He was right, and I wanted to claw his eyes out. “So what’s your plan now, huh? We pretend like we’re in love?”
“I’m not pretending.”
My stomach dropped, and my heart skipped a beat. Stupid fucking heart. Did he just tell me he loved me?
Shaking away the thought, I responded, “I don’t love you. In fact, right now it’s the complete opposite.”
He fell back against the couch, placing one arm over the back. How I could be furious with him, but still find him incredibly sexy and attractive only further incited my rage.
It wasn’t until he simply stated, “Well then, fuck me like you hate me, Miss Troy.”
That I truly lost my patience with him.
—Julian—
She grabbed the first thing in her sight and chucked it in my direction. “I wish I’d never met you!”
The vase crashed against the wall, shattering on the floor beside me.
“If you’re going to throw shit at me,” I snapped, further wanting to piss her off, “then I insist you start with your pussy.”
She gasped, and in three strides I was in her face, backing her into the wall. “Are you mad, Autumn? Angry? Seething from the inside out?”
“Yes! Yes! And Yes!”
“Welcome to my fucking life every time I had to push you away.”
“Get out of my face!” She shoved me, but I didn’t move an inch.
“Be careful what you wish for. For years you wanted my attention— well, now you have it. You’re my sole focus, sweetheart. Is it everything you ever wanted?”
“You’re ten years too late.”
“I gave you my attention back then in my own way.”
“Yeah, which usually involved your dick inside of me.”
I growled, “Don’t degrade what we have.”
“What we had.”
“What we have going on right now is fucking foreplay.”
“I didn’t know foreplay involved my knee to your balls.” She lifted her knee, but I blocked her advance.
“I’m not into that. How about we begin with your mouth instead?”
“Only if you intend on me biting it off.”
“The only thing you’ll be biting is your lip when I make you come.” I narrowed my eyes at her, arching an eyebrow and trying to keep my temper at bay.
“I didn’t know you were going to lie to the world.”
“That’s pretty damn clear.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“Which part of me is unreasonable, Autumn? What’s unreasonable about me saying something that I should have been saying a long time ago? What’s unreasonable about me claiming what has been, and always will be, mine?”
“You can’t do this to me. Ten years, Julian! Ten! I waited for you to come back and apologize. What do you want from me? I can’t forget about what you did to me. I can’t just let it go like you expect me to. It’s so fucking easy for you. I didn’t leave you. I didn’t fuck you over. I did nothing but love you. I’m trying to remain calm and be professional with you, but you’re making it really damn hard to not hate you.”
“I can’t apologize any more than I already have.”
“You haven’t apologized at all.”
I stepped back. “I see you didn’t read the article.”
“You apologized to me in an article?” She pushed me again. “What the hell kind of apology is that?”
“Autumn, I know I fucked up, and I have to live with the repercussions, but I lost you too. You weren’t the only one grieving the loss of our love. I lost everything that ever mattered to me. Including the only family I’ve ever known. Do you not realize that?”
Bing.
Her cell phone dinged with a text message.
“Oh, don’t mind that. It’s more than likely another text from my brother. You wanted the whole world to know about our history, and not for one fucking second did you think about the consequences. You’re so selfish you didn’t think about my brother or my parents and what they would think and say about your interview. We spent years denying and hiding our relationship, or whatever the fuck you want to call it, and you just openly confess it to the entire world without even running it by me first. Now, once again, I have to deal with the fallout. How the hell am I supposed to explain to them when I barely understand it myself?”
“Do you honestly think I’m that much of a heartless bastard? You don’t think it killed me to leave you? To leave all of you? Kid, I lost my best friend because of us—the only family I ever knew, ever had.”
“As a matter a fact, I do!”
“I’ve never stopped being yours!”
“You were never mine!”
I needed to catch my bearings and compose my thoughts, having to step away from the situation before it escalated to the point of no return. I couldn’t control my temper when it came to her, and it was why she loved to provoke me in the first place. I didn’t know what else I could do to make this right.
I was out of answers.