25
Iam mortified.
I cannot face Helia again, and the message I received yesterday gives me a good excuse to avoid him. Staying in my office all day doesn’t really help with the embarrassment of what I said yesterday.
Forget trying to better myself, I am sitting here having told my boss I imagined him in my dreams in such a sick way that I don’t know how he doesn’t feel weirded out. But then again, a man like Helia wouldn’t really feel like that now, would he?
He might even be having the time of his life with this information.
I breathe in and out, trying to regulate my heart, which wants to run out of my chest.
For the second time ever, I am standing in front of the Cainn mansion.
In front of the main door.
The jeans seem to be the wrong choice for today’s breezy weather. I should have worn something else. At least the cream jumper is providing some kind of warmth.
If the door doesn’t open within the next few minutes, I will run back to my car.
Cool wind ruffles my hair. It feels a lot colder now that I am out of my car, but even being here is making me feel a little sick.
What will I say?
I stretch my lips into a smile, but it hurts, so I drop it.
The flowers in my hand slip down to the ground, and I quickly pick them up, shaking them and getting rid of the dirt. Of course they had to fall now. The only day I wanted to gift them to someone.
The door opens in front of me, a warm soft glow of the lights filters out, and just as I lift my face to greet Aurora, the smile freezes on my face.
“Tell me why you are here every time I show up?” I speak through gritted teeth and the strained smile on my face.
Helia leans against the door, crossing his arms. His eyes follow a dark path down my body, making me clear my throat. I wait, but he doesn’t do anything but observe me.
He just looks at me. His head resting on the side of the door, his eyes silent just like he is, and under his scrutiny I feel a little self-conscious. Not because I suddenly don’t feel confident or he is making me wary but because those eyes of his. They feel like they are reaching deep inside me.
Seeking out something from me.
Like a lover’s touch.
Tender. Soft. Patient.
“You look like….” he starts, his rumbling voice making my own heart tremble in need.
Why do I feel this way?
Where is the hate I always carry around with me?
“I don’t want to hear it. Where is Aurora?” I look behind him to see her walking towards me, her chestnut hair bouncing.
“Move out of the way, Helia. I do not want any fights or arguments today” With a simple push from her, Helia turns and walks away but not before glancing over his shoulder at me.
His eyes are so deep and so achingly beautiful that it feels like they are physically calling out to me. I can feel his maddening eyes on me each time we are in a room together. I can see the antagonising way his eyes always do a slow sweep of my body.
“Ambrose,” Aurora murmurs, a small soft smile on her face. “Welcome.” She steps aside, and I finally take the first step inside her home, just like I am entering her heart.
Walking up to her, I hand her the pink roses. Her eyes fall upon them, and they light up. She looks up, and her lower lip trembles ever so slightly.
“Don’t. Please don’t cry,” I whisper. I lift my hand to her cheek but stop mid-way.
I drop it, and her eyes mirror the pain in my heart. This is exactly what it feels like to rip out a piece of your heart and watch it sit still as a stone and lose life bit by bit.
“This way.” She leads me through her home. A staircase to my right leads up to the second floor, and I spot blue accents all around the home as we pass a living room on my left. We pass another living room, but this one has a small little library on one of its walls.
At the end of the hallway, there is a wide door that opens to reveal a grand kitchen. Only the best of the best, the largest and most expensive things for Remo Cainn, after all.
He is the very epitome of the Elite. There is not a single powerful person that passes through London, that works in London, that Remo isn’t aware of.
You cannot escape him. At all.
Despite there being a mayor, a head deputy mayor—Talia’s father—Remo has his hands in everything. No wonder Dad wanted to get off his blacklist. To be blacklisted by Remo means to be removed from every connection, every tie, and everything you own.
“My friends are here. I promise they won’t bother you. They are pretty easy-going.”
I nod wordlessly as I follow her into the kitchen.
Navy-blue counter tops with white cupboards line the back and black stools surround the kitchen island. There is a dining table to the right of the wide kitchen, with sliding doors towards the back, covered by curtains.
I spot Remo amongst everyone. Standing tall with his arms crossed, leaning against the counter on the far end of the kitchen. His eyes follow everyone around the counter with a small frown on his face. Aurora walks up to him, and instantly his expression melts and he gathers her in his arms. His tall figure almost engulfs her whole, his thick arms going around her small back.
She giggles, but that is drowned out by the sudden shouts of her friends.
Kamari is here and so is Ruel, as well as another brunette woman I haven’t met yet. Helia is nowhere to be found despite walking this way.
But that doesn’t mean I’m looking for him. No. I’m not.
“Everyone! Ambrose is here,” Aurora shouts, and silence engulfs the room.
All eyes are on me, and I stand there. Unmoving.
“Don’t be awkward, Ambrose. We will be making pizzas to eat while we watch a movie in the living room afterwards, though the vote is still out on what we will be watching.” Aurora easily slides in to save me.
“Right. Do you need help?” I ask as I remove my scarf and go over to the dining table to put down my bag, scarf, and coat.
“Actually…” Kamari starts off, pushing Ruel out of her way and walking towards the middle of the kitchen and standing in front of me.
With long, luscious, curly hair, eyes hinting at the perfect honey colour, flared jeans that hug her hips, and a black jumper with the top few buttons popped open, Kamari looks like a dream.
Ruel looks like he belongs on the front of magazines, and I can’t help but think that getting a famous football player on one of our covers would be a good idea. It could be an exclusive edition that we can sell, featuring the heart-throb football player of England that would have women screaming.
Black unruly hair and his athletic body give him a bad boy look. His playful flirty smile reminds me of Helia. He wears a navy-blue sweater that moulds to his muscles and blue washed jeans. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing a sparkling watch and a glint of a chain around his neck.
“We will be in groups of two people. The teams are Aurora and Remo, Ruel and me, you and Helia, and Venezia…” She trails off as she looks over at the woman, who I assume is Remo’s younger sister.
She has long, pin-straight brown hair, olive skin tone, matching Remo’s, and similar dark eyes to him, too. She’s quite slender and almost as tall as me, though I don’t know her age. With an oversized white and brown striped jumper and black skinny jeans and white socks, she has young features, a soft touch to her cheeks, and a beautiful pearly white smile with a side parting in her hair.
She looks to be in her early twenties, possibly.
“I will be the judge, of course, and since I am left out, I’ll pick the movie.”
Protests start all around, and she shrugs with a victorious smile, making my own heart fill with some sort of blasting light.
Everyone starts laughing and pointing to each other about their disgusting taste in movies. One suggests a Disney movie, while the other suggests a vampire series, and another votes for a dystopian series. It makes me swallow in longing.
The back of my head tickles, and the hair on the back of my neck rises in awareness.
And I know exactly who is here.
“You and I are together, Emerald,” Helia’s whisper in my ear makes my whole body stand up in attention.
He can breathe in a room and my eyes would find him.
How can I get rid of this? To stop this reaction I always get?
My mind, my traitorous body, and the way my soul wants to be pulled into his own, into the embrace of the one I am supposed to hate, is a complex puzzle in itself.
How am I going to keep up with this facade and keep denying my desire for Helia? And the small bundle of feelings that are being accompanied by this desire? I cannot look past it all and jump into this.
Our desires are out in the open. That much is clear.
Helia walks past me, his hand grazing from one end of my back to the other, leaving me breathless.
“We have a judge?” I say as I walk towards the counter and see three workstations. The kitchen island is so big, it could fit another two little stations for the pizza competition.
“Yes. Me. So try to impress me, Ambrose. Bribery works well.” Venezia winks at me, making me laugh.
The suffocation that was wrapping around me disperses. We all gather around and stand in front of our stations. Kamari and Ruel are next to me, with Aurora and Remo next to Ruel. Helia walks around the counter and stands next to me.
Venezia is bouncing on her feet, a wide smile on her face as she points to the things on the counter.
“This was your idea, wasn’t it?” I ask Venezia when she walks to me.
“Sure was. Though this man right here seems to hate the kitchen, so he voted against it. Thankfully, everyone in this was with me and not him.” She narrows her eyes at Helia, who is leaning on the counter on his forearms.
He turns his head to me, and the minute his eyes catch mine, I hold my breath.
The intensity in his eyes makes me shift in place.
“Where has the little fox gone? Are you going to bite me for looking at you? For standing next to you?” he says quietly.
I huff at his words.
“Why? Seems like someone misses being insulted.”
I look down at him and catch him biting his cheek with a smile.
“You came here. You could have taken care of this messy hair.” I flick strands of his hair, his eyes shutting as I do.
“You guys can begin now!” Venezia shouts.
But I can’t move my eyes away from him.
There is a pull between us that forces me to take a step closer to him. I want to reach out to him again, but how will I explain that?
Turning away, I clear my throat, grab the pizza dough, and start to roll it out.
“What will we be putting on the pizza?” Helia asks just as he grabs the tomato sauce.
Helia and I disagree on almost everything while making the godforsaken pizza. It left the others staring at us in shock. He didn’t like what I did, and I couldn’t let him win in any way at all.
“We don’t need pepperoni.” I push him away when he starts adding it.
“We might as well not put cheese on, and forget the tomato sauce too. I will just eat the base at this point,” he counters with a glare.
I like my pizza with cheese only, and he likes it with lots of different toppings, but we are making one pizza.
“Remo, let me do it!” Aurora calls out, frustrated.
I glance over to see that he is telling her to let him do the work so she can relax, but she looks ready to kill him.
“That’s not how you do it!” Kamari screams as she sees Ruel pick the pizza up, effectively making the sauce and the cheese almost fall off it. The pizza is not on the tray, just on the table counter.
I hide a smile. We aren’t the only ones fighting and it’s kind of fun to argue over something so little.
“Say cheese, guys!”
We all look up at once. Venezia is holding up her phone, taking pictures of us with the flash on.
“Make me blind, why don’t you?” Helia grumbles, shutting his eyes.
“Sure will.” She walks over and takes close-up pictures of him with the flash on.
My hand flies to my mouth, holding in a laugh.
Helia leans over the counter to grab her phone, and she screams, running back to the living room.
“It’s okay. A flash won’t blind you,” I mutter, admiring my plain cheese pizza, which is ready to be put into the oven.
Helia looks over at me. His eyes are a glittering colour today, sage green in contrast to his pitch-black hair. His sharp jaw and the tendons in his neck make my mouth water. I want to press my lips there, to feel his heartbeat.
I shut down that thought really fast.
The scar running down his eye really intrigues me. It makes him look devastatingly hot. Just looking at him makes my ears burn hot. It evokes turmoil within me, like molten lava is roiling in the pit of my stomach, and it burns hotter the longer he looks at me.
I am aware of his presence like never before.
Every time he passes me, every time he is in a room with me, my body buzzes with excitement.
It’s not possible to ignore any of this.
“In the oven now,” I mutter softly, grabbing the tray and placing the pizza in the oven behind us. Kamari follows soon after me, and so does Aurora.
We all are now piled into the living room, a movie ready to be turned on.
But a problem has arisen: the seating plan.
“Someone can sit on the sofa, if they don’t mind.” Aurora motions towards the sofa.
The living room is grand; there is no need to sit on the sofa. But everyone wants to sit close together. That means sitting in front of the four-seater sofa facing the TV mounted on the wall. There are pillows and blankets on the floor, and a blanket on the sofa with throw pillows all around.
“I will take the ground.” Kamari places herself in front of the sofa on the ground, while Remo and Helia grab the coffee table and place it on the far end of the living room on the right.
I am sitting on the sofa, a little out of place as everyone takes their seats as if they already have done this multiple times. I haven’t.
“Do you want me to sit next to you, Ambrose?”
I look up to see Aurora holding out a bowl of popcorn for me. My eyes fall to the empty space next to me and to the people on the floor. I don’t want her to feel left out or to not sit with her friends just because of me.
“Sit with Remo or Kamari. It’s okay, I’ll have the whole sofa to myself.” I lift my cheeks into a smile, hoping she believes it and agrees.
She opens her mouth to say something, her eyes narrowing, only to stop short a heavy arm falls on my shoulder.
“I’ll keep her accompanied,” the velvet voice drawls.
Aurora’s eyes light up, and she nods. “Perfect. You don’t mind Helia sitting with you, right? If he does anything, you tell me. I know exactly what kind of mischief he is always up to.” She narrows her eyes at him with a pointed finger.
To see her care for me, trying to keep me company, helping me settle in, so I don’t feel lonely or left out, warms my heart. I truly feel like she is getting closer to forgiving me. I hope she does. It’s not easy to forgive someone who tormented you.
But I am grateful for it. I will take whatever crumbs she gives me.
A laugh vibrates in Helia’s chest, raising goosebumps all over me.
“You have so little faith in me. I just want to keep Ambrose company. She doesn’t talk to me in the office much. It will be great to get to know each other, right?”
I sigh, shaking my head.
“It’s okay, Aurora. Go sit down. I will be fine.” I hit Helia in the ribs with my elbow.
“Ow!”
Aurora narrows her eyes in warning once more, making me grin.
“Remo, reel in your misses. She’s out for blood today.”
Remo looks up from my right where he is seated in front of Helia, his build so big that his shoulders sit higher than the sofa. Aurora settles into his arms and looks so small.
Remo’s one look, his jaw ticking just once, has Helia raising his hands.
He doesn’t need to say anything for everyone in the room to tremble. Quite like Helia. They truly do suit each other. No wonder they are friends.
“You both are so alike yet so different,” I murmur, watching the opening scene of the murder mystery Venezia chose.
Kamari is next to Aurora, then Ruel, then Venezia, who is sitting in the corner on the left, a whole blanket to herself. She’s got an excited smile on her face as she watches with intrigue. It’s her movie, after all.
“You guys are going to love it,” she tells us.
“Sure, because we love watching murder and gore,” Kamari grumbles, making Aurora laugh.
“I’ll protect you, sweetheart.” Ruel wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls her to him.
“Get away from me.” She scrunches her nose at him.
Ruel grins in return, as if he knows something she doesn’t.
“I hope not. I wouldn’t want to see Remo look at you the way I do,” Helia answers quietly and softly in my ear.
I thought he hadn’t heard me, but I catch him settle in next to me, his thigh pressed right to mine.
Touching.
His shoulder, too. His body is so close that I can smell his strong gardenia cologne. I can see the small tattoos that are creeping up his shirt collar, can feel the heat from his body seeping into mine.
My heart races at being so close to him in the dark, on the sofa, alone.
He could reach over, and his hand would be in my lap. He could rip the blanket off of me; he could kiss me and no one would notice.
He could—
I shut my eyes tightly.
What is going on with me today?
The movie starts, and everyone grows quiet. I don’t reply nor look at Helia beside me.
I force myself to keep my eyes on the TV when he shifts.
I don’t look at him when we reach forty minutes into the movie and a soft sigh falls from his lips. Lips I have kissed.
I don’t let my curiosity win when I feel his hand graze mine under the blanket on my thigh. My legs are crossed, touching his big, strong thigh next to me.
My heart spikes when I feel a feathery touch on my neck. Thinking it’s a trick of my mind, I don’t look over.
My stomach dips when I feel it again, as if he’s brushing a strand of my hair away from my neck.
The girl in the movie is running through the woods, a hooded figure running after her with a knife in hand, and the music in the background is getting louder and louder. The girls in the room grab their blankets and cover the lower half of their faces.
But I’m not scared. I am too aware of what Helia is doing.
“I’m bored,” he whispers in my ear, his hot breath fanning my bare shoulder.
The girl in the movie trips.
The music grows louder, and my heart thunders.
“I’ve watched you all night long, Ambrose,” he continues, his lips softly skimming over my shoulder, making me suck in a sharp breath.
“You make me lose my mind.”
The killer reaches the girl with his knife, the music louder than ever.
“You make me a crazy, crazy man.”
The killer lifts his knife and slams it down on the girl.
And Helia’s lips kiss my throbbing pulse. I gasp along with others in the room, though not for the same reason.
Helia grazes my shoulder with his teeth, licking and nibbling at the skin there, and I don’t do anything to stop him. My hands tightly fist the blanket on my lap, my eyes on everyone else while they watch the scene intently.
“Helia,” I whisper, pushing at his chest softly.
A pulse throbs between my legs.
He lets go, his eyes hooded. The light from the TV illuminates his face, revealing lust, desire. His eyes hold mine, and I have a hard time looking away.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I murmur.
He drops his head back against the sofa, jaw tense, looking up at the ceiling while I watch him.
His arm rests behind me on the back of the sofa, and once I know he isn’t going to do anything else, I turn back to the TV. The girl is sitting in her house shivering wet as rain splatters loudly outside.
Just as she goes upstairs, a loud bang sounds at the door. She screams, along with the girls in the room.
Helia’s hand behind me grabs hold of the back of my neck and pulls me to him in a quick, bruising kiss.
He lets me go a moment later, and I am left breathless, not knowing what just happened.
“Helia.” My fingers go to my tingling lips, my eyes wide.
The look on his face… He looks tortured, his brows furrowed, his lips pulled down as his eyes beg me to let him. Let him what?
What does he want?
Why the kisses?
Shouldn’t he hate me?
“You—you…” I blink, turning back to the TV. “Don’t do that again. I will walk away Helia,”
“Don’t you want this, Ambrose?” he whispers hoarsely.
“Wrong place, wrong time to ask a stupid question like that.” I jab him in the ribs, but he grabs my elbow and almost pulls me into his lap.
“Then tell me that you aren’t dripping from the fear of getting caught, from just the thought of kissing me, of letting me touch you right there, right now. Tell me I’m lying,” he whispers in my ear.
I stay silent.
He isn’t lying.
“Fuck.” He runs a hand through his hair, watching me, but I don’t look at him.
I have no answer. On more than one occasion, I have imagined him in such a dirty, disgusting way that I was ashamed to think of him like that.
To have him ask me about it?
For him to almost beg to touch me?
In my sister’s home?
I don’t know what to do, and my heart is too muddled for me to think properly.
There is still an hour left of the movie.
Everyone is engrossed in the movie, keeping them on edge. Though Remo seems to be bored more than anything.
And Helia’s body right next to mine is making it hard to think.
My heart is still racing from what has happened.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I shouldn’t want him. Shouldn’t accept this invitation from him.
It’s wrong.
So, so wrong to want my enemy like this. Whose hands held my throat, ready to kill me.
But my hand travels over to his lap, grabbing his large hand in mine, and I bring it over to my lap, to the hem of my jeans. I can’t find it in me to stop myself at all.
When I glance over for a quick mere second, I catch Helia’s eyes darken. They look seductive and crazy. He looks like he is ready to snap at any second.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I mutter once more, biting my lip, my eyes shutting when I feel his fingers slide down my jeans, under my underwear, to my soaking pussy.
We are enemies.
On the opposite side of the battlefield.
But I want him.