The Boy Who Has No Belief - Victoria Quinn Page 0,105
His mind was never present when we were together and we hadn’t had sex in weeks, but I still didn’t pressure him or question him.
This was just something I’d have to accept. When Derek was in a dark place, this was his reaction. I loved him enough to wait for him to come back, to be understanding rather than impatient.
He rarely gave me affection. He hardly kissed me. And he hadn’t told me he loved me in a while. He stopped tutoring Lizzie because he was too distracted, and Lizzie understood he just needed time. The semester was pretty much over, so it didn’t really matter at this point anyway.
At the end of the workday, I joined him at the table.
He kept his head down and didn’t acknowledge me.
We never talked about what happened with the rocket. We never discussed his mother. We didn’t really discuss anything at all.
I stood there and watched him work. “I got a dress.”
He stilled then looked up at me. “A dress for what?”
“The rehearsal dinner.”
His eyes filled with annoyance, like just the mention of the event infuriated him.
“Unless you don’t want me to come with you.”
“No, it’s fine,” he said coldly.
I hated this so fucking badly. I missed the man I loved so much. “Derek, I know you’re going through a hard time, but you said you would always make me a priority—”
“I’m not in the mood for this shit, Emerson.” He stared at me with pure loathing. “I gave my mom a heart attack, my rocket was a disaster, you don’t understand the meaning of privacy, and now I have to go to this stupid fucking wedding tonight and see a bunch of assholes I’d rather not see. No, you aren’t the priority right now.”
I did my best to keep my expression controlled, but that was really difficult right now. I hated it when he screamed at me, unable to control his anger, but the biggest issue I had with his rant was something he said. “I don’t understand the meaning of privacy? What does that mean?”
He dropped his pencil and rose to his feet so he could stare down at me rather than up. “It means what it literally means. You violated my privacy when you had no fucking right to do that.”
“Derek, I have no idea what you’re talking about—”
“You’re going to look me in the eye and act like you didn’t read all the stories I wrote about you?”
My heart clenched tightly when I realized my secret was out—and at the worst possible time.
“Don’t act like I meant to send that to you. That was a fucking accident, and you knew it. But you read it anyway. Then you wrote your own? So, this whole fucking time when you were just my assistant, you knew how I wanted to fuck your brains out a million ways to Sunday? You were my assistant, Emerson. You knew how I felt about privacy more than anybody. You shouldn’t have opened that document, and when you did, you should have immediately closed it. The only way you would have known it was you was if you read to the end. Yes, a huge violation of privacy.”
I felt like I wasn’t being sentenced in a courtroom but on the steps of the gallows with the noose around my neck. “Derek, let me explain—”
“Explain what?” His nostrils flared because he was out-of-his-mind pissed off. “Explain why you lied to me this entire time? Explain why you crossed a line you shouldn’t have crossed? Explain why you never told me the truth? Explain why the person I trusted most betrayed my trust?”
“Derek.” I raised my hands slowly, so fucking scared right now, scared I would lose him. “Please, let me explain.”
His nostrils continued to flare as he breathed hard, staring me down like an enemy.
“I opened the document because I wasn’t sure what it was. I love your writing, so I thought it was another story you were writing. I thought maybe you were switching to romance or something, I don’t know. But I love your writing, so I kept reading…because it was fucking hot. And yes, I read to the bottom and realized you were writing about me. Even if it was another story you were writing, I shouldn’t have read it without your permission. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking that clearly. I wrote my own story in return because I intended to give it to you…because I was just as attracted to you.