Temptation - Leigh Lennon Page 0,59
I can’t make out what he says. The background noise is gone when he returns to the line. “Start again, Chad.”
My head rests in my hand, and the phone is on speaker. “You were right. She’s different. She can’t give me what I need, but what I need is her.”
A long silence falls between us when I’m not sure if we’re still connected, then a loud moan invades the line. “Fuck, Chadwick. You can’t force her, though.”
“I was going to sit down with her. I only had one hard line. You know me, only one hard line? I don’t want to beg her, but I have to make her understand.”
Shit, I am begging. I’m begging my best friend to sequester my kitten in her room until I can make it to her.
“Chadwick, do you know how unhinged you sound right now?”
He’s not wrong.
“I mean,” Jared continues, “if you want me to hold her for you, I will but…”
He doesn’t have to finish because I know. “Fuck, I love her, Jared.”
“I know you do.” His words are the nail in the coffin. “So what do you want me to do?”
It pains me. I want to punch something, hit something, and fuck something. “Make sure she has her final paycheck and move all of her personal items to Kira’s place.”
I’m gripping my phone so hard, though it’s on speaker, and I notice her cell phone I’d given her when she moved into the club is sitting on the table near where she left the letter.
“Anything else?” Jared asks.
“Yeah, make sure she has a decent phone.” I end the call. And as much as I want to rid myself of the pull for domination, I can’t. I’d been willing to give up so much, yet she still walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Eve
My old phone begins to beep through the night, and the older woman next to me, though she looks sweet, is not happy at every notification. And because my old phone is a piece of shit, the silent function doesn’t work.
I won’t reply to Jared, Kira, Non-Nina, and Taya. Now, Lila is texting me. I turn it off when the scowl of the grandma could burn me.
“You running from something, dear?” Her words don’t fool me. With her tone, she’s agitated.
“No.” I mean for my tone to come across as assertive, but I fail miserably, and even in the darkness of the bus, the older woman sees it with the little bit of light floating in from the windows. “I’m sorry my phone woke you. It’s broken and won’t go to silent.”
She quirks her head. “Well, that’s something, a phone that won’t shut up.” Her humor is peeking through, and her cold hands touch my own. “I know a little something about running away. And if hindsight was 20/20, I may have done things differently.”
Why is this little grandma type so welcoming and calming when all I want to do is cry? “How can you tell?” I ask.
“Yeah, you live as long as I have, and you learn a little about life.” She gives me a small smirk. “And for your pain to radiate off you like a heating pad, I’d say it’s love.”
I do love Chadwick. There’s no doubt in the three weeks we’ve known each other, his assholeness has surrounded me and breached my barriers.
“And let me guess,” the older woman continues, “it’s complicated, right?”
A small laugh meets her, and she gives me a knowing look. “Complicated would be easy at this point. It’s impossible,” I explain.
“He wants something you can’t give him? Or vice versa? Am I right?” We enter Chicago with many lights, and it’s then I can see her wrinkles, but behind them is the most beautiful woman. And she’s dressed to the nines, which makes me question why she’s on a bus and not in first class on a plane.
“Yeah, you could say that. What do you do when your hard line is the one thing he can’t give up?”
“Wow, well, that’s a tough one, sweetie.” And the cranky grandma I’d woken up is nowhere around me. She is replaced by a compassionate woman, still holding my hand. “And you can’t accept him for his faults?”
“Well…he can’t accept my faults either.” This poor granny doesn’t need to know he wants to chain me and whip me and own my body in a sexual way. I won’t be responsible for her heart attack.
“You have to decide if a life of loneliness is worth it. Believe me, if I could