get to Rachel quickly.
At her door, he pounded against the steel door. “I know you’re in there, Rachel. Let me in so we can talk.”
Rachel heard his voice and her heart sank. She stared at her door, her stomach clenching and a sick feeling overwhelming her. She didn’t answer, just stared at the door, wondering what to do.
“Rachel, I’m not leaving here until we talk. If you want to do it through the door, that’s fine with me but do you really want your neighbors to know all about our business?” he asked loudly.
Her hands fisted by her sides and she almost growled out her frustration. She stomped to the door and opened it, glaring at him as he stepped inside her apartment.
“Thank you,” he said ironically and walked past her. “Where were you last night?” he demanded as soon as her door was closed and they were alone together.
“None of your business.”
“It is my business,” he countered and moved closer to her. She took a step back and he stopped, but he didn’t retreat. “What we have together isn’t going away.”
“It’s already gone,” she argued. “I told you before. I don’t do casual sex.”
He leaned in to her with a smile that wasn’t at all humorous. “And I told you that wasn’t what I wanted from you.”
“But the other women? You’ll do casual with them? I’m the only one that thinks she might be…” she stopped before she made a fool of herself. “Never mind.”
“I won’t. What were you going to say?” he asked and stepped forward. When she retreated this time, he came forward again. “I want to know what you thought we were doing.”
She couldn’t stop the tears, wanting him gone and out of her life so she could start to heal once again. “Just leave me alone. We don’t have the same priorities in life. I can’t meet your needs and you can’t meet mine.”
“You are everything I want in a woman!” he countered fiercely.
“Sure I am. I’m so wonderful and so fulfilling that you needed another chickybabe on the side, right?”
“She was coming after me, Rachel. I was not reciprocating.”
“Is that why her lipstick was all over your mouth when I walked in?” She wiped angrily at the tears that she couldn’t stop.
At the sight of her tears, and the red rimmed eyes, Rais felt like someone had just punched him in the gut hard. He hated seeing her like this, wanted to pull her into his arms and soothe the pain he knew she was feeling. Because he knew how he would feel if he ever saw her with another man like she’d found him last night. “Rachel, I know how it looks but you’re wrong. I wasn’t coming onto her. It was all on her side and if you had come in a few moments later, you would have seen me pushing her away. If you’d waited just a moment before entering, I would have told her that you are the woman I wanted.”
“For now.”
“Not for now!” he replied, softly, but with force. “I want you forever. I want to wake up next to you every morning for the rest of my life. I want to fall asleep with you curled up in my arms. I want you at my table and bearing our children together. I want you, Rachel. I’ve loved you for so long I can’t even remember when my feelings for you changed from friendship and brotherly affection, to something significantly deeper.”
She wanted so desperately to believe him but how could she? “Then why all the women over the years?”
“Because I was trying to replace you, Rachel,” he came back. His voice wasn’t yelling anymore. It was soft, confident and forceful. “They all looked like you because you were either too young for what I felt for you, or you were avoiding me. I didn’t want to scare you when you were so young, but then you disappeared and wouldn’t even come out to visit your father during the summers.”
“Because I knew you’d be there.”
“And you hated me for the women. But they were Rachel replacements.”
She looked up at him, not sure if she liked the words he was telling her. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I loved you. I wanted you so badly and you were so timid, so scared and I’d known you for so long, even I didn’t know what I was feeling for you until a few years ago.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, but the