& Then They Loved (Ampersand Love #3)

33. A Second Chance

33

A Second Chance

Vera

“ S earching for this?”

Vera glanced over her shoulder, trying to not blush when she saw Vihaan dangle her silky panties on the tip of his finger. Sitting back against his headboard, he swung her thong like a pendulum, the action causing his biceps to flex. She couldn’t help but skim a look over the expanse of his tawny chest, sliding down to his stomach, noting the happy trail that disappeared under the sheets that covered him from the waist down. Not that it hid the outline of his firm thighs nor the appendage in between that had singularly destroyed her ability to move for the last several hours.

“I’ve been looking for that for the last ten minutes!” she complained, stretching one hand out when he teasingly jerked her undergarment out of reach. “Vihaan!” she grunted, leaning over to grab it and failing when he kept tugging it away. With an exasperated growl, she straightened, glaring down at the naughty man who’d already waylaid her efforts to leave multiple times. “Can I have them back?”

“No, I’m going to hoard them until you have no choice but to stop wearing underwear around me.”

Heat dotted her cheeks when he grinned playfully at her, looking so boyish that it made her want to stare. How did he keep getting more handsome everyday? It was so unfair.

Needing to gather herself, Vera turned away, spotting her discarded bra at the foot of his dresser. Muffled footsteps approached her from behind as she slipped her dress on, struggling with the zipper on her back.

She went still, goosebumps prickling her skin when he brushed her hands off and gripped the two open edges to jerk her closer. The heat of his uncovered chest warmed her back, making her want to press into him and melt. With excruciating slowness, he pulled the zipper up, one finger trailing up the bumps of her spine in a familiar dance, causing her stomach to clench as need pulsed through her again. Her awareness of him made it hard for her to breathe normally, her mind going woozy at the recollection of all sinfully pleasurable things those hands had done to her not long ago.

“Stay,” he husked, his lips brushing against the ridge of her ear, causing her to shiver as she felt the hardening nudge of his cock against the top of her ass. The man was insatiable and, as it was becoming quite clear, so was she.

His lips pressed against that sensitive spot behind her ear that made her gasp softly as he said again, “Stay with me.”

She wanted to. She shouldn’t. The fact that she wanted to was dangerous. Vihaan had managed to make her do things she’d never done before.

Like sleep with the same man more than once. Like behave foolishly and jeopardise her career.

Instead of complaining to HR about his flirty messages, she’d participated in every repartee. At first, she could fool herself into thinking that she was staying silent so as to not create strife at work. Eventually, she couldn’t hide the giddiness she felt at his replies to her waspish comments. She caught herself eagerly waiting for when next he’d say something silly or inappropriate and make her giggle in private.

Being fuck-buddies with her ex-boyfriend-turned-boss was a massive risk which had trickled into idiocy. She’d let him fuck her in his office in the middle of the workday. She’d begged him for it.

The four walls of his cabin had kept their actions hidden. For now.

She was constantly flirting with being discovered. She’d lose every bit of the respect she’d earned at Ethos if any of her colleagues caught them, because they’d assume that she’d slept her way to her current position and was doing it again for more progress.

With the SSI launch on the horizon, one misstep would destroy everything she’d worked for. How would she face Nanu then? What would she say? That it happened because she was addicted to the orgasms Vihaan doled out like candy?

Or. . . was it because her resolve to remain unaffected by him was weakening? She’d begun to wonder if the reason she’d never fallen in love with anyone else was because she’d never fallen out of love with Vihaan. It had been so easy to maintain an emotional distance from all men, but she’d struggled to do that with Vihaan. Every interaction between them had been driven by her feelings without any care for logic. The persistent and unbearable anger she’d held towards him had somehow transformed over the months into something eerily reminiscent of what they’d shared at seventeen.

Something in her had shifted, edging towards closure. With old complaints no longer at the forefront of her mind, Vera was running out of excuses to pretend all she wanted from him was a good dicking down.

“Sleep over tonight, Vera.”

She twisted around, stepping away from him before she lost all reason. It was hard to think with Vihaan’s hands and lips on her. “I don’t have a change of clothes.”

“You don’t need clothes to sleep in my bed.”

At the look she slanted at him, Vihaan relented. “Fine, you can have one of my t-shirts. It’ll probably look better on you than it does on me anyway.”

This. It was when he said things like this, like they were a couple and it was natural for her to wear his clothes, that Vera felt unsettled.

When he said things like this and did things that led to Rahul sending her an apology and Vihaan turning up at work looking like he’d been in a bar fight. It didn’t take a genius to deduce how exactly Vihaan had followed through on his promise to take care of everything .

With two fingers tracing the edge of his jaw, she gently tipped his face to the side, her eyes inspecting the slowly fading bruises on his cheek. Her stomach rolled in worry even now at the thought of him getting attacked by his beefy cousin.

She was torn between berating him for fighting her battles and thanking him for defending her. For nearly fifteen years, she’d had only herself to rely on. The idea of Vihaan strolling into her life and effortlessly assuming the role of a protector was petrifying. And maybe, a little bit exciting.

Could she really let him in again? Rely on him once more? Because nothing about this felt casual anymore. She’d been burned by him in the past but recent events had softened her to the idea of . . . them.

Maybe he’d changed from the boy he used to be into a man she could trust again. The time for that discussion, however, wasn’t now. “The big broadcast interview to kick off the SSI series is on Monday. I should go home and prepare for it. You should as well. ”

“It’s only Friday night. We can prep together over the weekend. Hell, we can grab your stuff from your apartment, and you can stay with me till we go to work.”

“I don’t do sleepovers,” she replied, her voice holding none of the decisiveness she’d have hoped for.

“You also said you wouldn’t sleep with me again. Yet, here we are, losing count of how many times you’ve broken that rule.”

Unable to hold his gaze when he looked at her like he could still picture her flushed face and pleasured cries when he drove himself into her, she spun toward the mirror, pretending to fix her hair to hide the slight tremble in her hand. “What’s your point?”

“My point, Princess,” he murmured, meeting her gaze in their reflection, “is that things change. You’ve broken one rule. Break another.”

Vihaan

Vihaan waited, impatience striking him when Vera bit down on her lower lip, clearly still thinking about his offer. Whatever her reason for insisting on maintaining this distance, he was done pretending. Arjun and Rian’s advice kept swirling in his mind in the days since his altercation with Rahul, and it had all boiled down to a single thing.

A second chance.

For years, he’d remained trapped, burning in the flames of her betrayal. For ages, he’d been tormented by imaginary scenarios. What would have happened to them if they’d run the natural course of their relationship? Maybe they wouldn’t even be together. Maybe .

But Vihaan knew he’d been lying to himself.

If her love for him had been true, if she’d never chosen his father’s money over him, they would have been high school sweethearts who’d be an old, married couple by now. Their fights wouldn’t have been about heartbreak; they would have been because he left a wet towel on the bed, or that she paid more attention to the kids than him.

He’d have looked forward to going home to a wife he adored and children who kept them busy. Even in the short year they’d been together, he’d imagined a dark-haired little girl with cat eyes, in the spitting image of her mother, who called him Papa.

That would have been their story.

Instead, he was standing in his apartment, watching her gather her purse and phone, ready to wipe all evidence of her time with him. As if every emotion left between them was superficial.

She let him touch her body, but not her heart. And that was no longer enough.

The part of him that had rung hollow and empty for so long finally felt a little full in her presence. Every time he held Vera, when they bantered or butt heads, those intermittent moments when her animosity faded—it had begun to heal him. New threads of connection had been woven and he had no intention of breaking them off again.

“Things have changed for me. This isn’t working anymore.”

Her gaze flew to his, shocked. “You. . . don’t want to sleep with me anymore?”

He almost burst out laughing. As if he’d want anyone else. He shook his head, his expression making it clear how absurd her assumption was. “I want us to be exclusive, Vera.”

She spun on her heel to face him, her brows knitted, the line in her forehead deepening into a frown that made Vihaan want to massage it away. “You told me you weren’t getting together with other women. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve either been at work, or spending my evenings with you, which means I haven’t been with anyone else either. That sounds pretty exclusive to me.”

Gripping her chin firmly, he let his thumb trace her lush bottom lip, wanting nothing more than to replace his finger with his mouth.

“I’m not talking about sex,” he huskily admitted. “Don’t misunderstand me. Sex with you is mind-blowing. Always has been. But I want more.”

“M-more?”

“I want to take you on a date, pick you up from your place, bring you flowers, see you dressed for me, send you messages that make you blush.” His gaze darkened, focusing on her mouth when her tongue darted out to lick her dry lips. “I want to hold you in the daylight, not just under the cover of darkness. Kiss you without these rules you’ve put in place. I want you to tell people that I am your boyfriend, that you’re my girlfriend. I want more. I want it all. Simple.”

“Nothing about us is simple.” Even as she denied it, her eyes were soft on him, nervously picking at her dress. “We have history and you—you’re. . . my boss,” she said weakly, making him chuckle. She cracked a smile at the same time, as if she too agreed that her reason was silly.

An overwhelming sort of affection for this woman rushed at him and he teased her. “Which boss lets his employee talk back to him like you do with me? From the first moment I saw you in that dark boardroom, this was inevitable. You’ve never been just an employee, and I have never been just your boss.”

“But you’re right,” he added. “We do have history we need to clear. I’ll even take the first step.”

“The first step in what?” she asked.

“In forgiving you. Which I do. I forgive you.”

The silence that grew between them was delicate enough to be broken by the flutter of a butterfly wing. Vihaan watched a myriad of emotions flash across Vera’s pretty face, her smile fading with every tick of the clock. When she finally met his gaze, all that remained was incredulity.

“ You forgive me ?“ she asked, her voice awful and hollow.

“I do. I will not hold the past against you. The slate is wiped clean on my end. Let’s move ahead.”

To his consternation, instead of being convinced by his words and sincerity, Vera drew away.

“I should go.”

He followed her out into the living room, gripping her hand before she escaped. “Listen! I want to do this right. Date you, have you stay a full night with me, share my bed for more than just sex, maybe live togeth—”

“No!” she almost yelled, ripping her arm away from him.

Vihaan’s jaw clenched, her rejection piercing him. “You haven’t even heard me out.”

“No,” she reiterated firmly. “This was a mistake.”

“What was?”

“This. Whatever—” She angrily gestured to the space between them. “It was just. . . sex.”

Irritation blew away the last of his patience and he pinned her to the wall nearby, his gentility melting away as desperation took over.

“We have fucked on every surface of this apartment,” he said, undeterred by the spark of anger in her at his impudence for bringing it up. If she thought he’d let her hide behind whatever lies she’d told herself so she could walk away from him, he’d break that illusion today. “I have held you while you fell apart on my fingers, on my cock, screaming my name, crying for more. You’ve let me do things to you that no man ever did, and if I have my way, no other man ever will. It may have started out as ‘just sex’ but it hasn’t felt like that for a long time. I know you. I know your body. I know your brain. I know what makes you tick. I want another go at us.”

“Because the first try went so remarkably well?” she sneered, her eyes red.

“We’re different people now. We’re not teenagers anymore. I’m willing to take a chance on you again.”

“How magnanimous of you,” she snapped. “Is this the part where I get on my knees?”

“Be serious,” Vihaan scolded, unable to understand why she was fighting him instead of thanking him.

“I am. I have no clue why you think you need to forgive me when I’m the one who was hurt.”

“You sold us out!” he argued, his voice rising along with hers.

“Are you insane?!” Vera cried, her hands flying in frustration. “I gave you parts of me I never knew I had. I let you in where I allowed no one, and you? You ripped my heart out and walked all over it like I was nothing more than a cheap lay.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He couldn’t hold back the pain in his voice when he finally laid out the reason for his anger. “You took money from my father.”

“So?”

“You made me feel worthless.” Heat caused his ears to burn while he tried not to let old grievances take over.

Vera narrowed her eyes, watching him like he was talking in a made-up language for which there was no codex.

“Was it your ego that was hurt or your pride?” she finally asked.

“Both!”

“Because I didn’t take money from you?”

“Because you took any money at all, goddamnit! How do you not see how messed up what you did was?”

Vera’s expression hardened; her words barely pushed out through clenched teeth. “I’m not even going to pretend I understand what you just said, because that situation had absolutely fuck-all to do with you.”

Vihaan slapped a hand against the back of his couch, exasperated at the unnecessary turns their conversation was taking. With a deep breath to rein in his irritation, he tried again to steer the topic to what was important.

“We may never see eye-to-eye on the past but I’m willing to let it go. I want to move on, Vera. I can give you everything you want. Money trouble? I have you covered. You want to work on your show? Fuck, I’ll find a way to sign the entire damn channel to your name. Whatever you want, it’s yours. In return, you are mine. All of you—mind, body, heart.”

With the way Vera glared at him, Vihaan got the distinct feeling he’d somehow decimated any goodwill he’d earned with her over the last few months. When she spoke next, her words were clipped.

“Almost a decade and a half later, you still think you can buy me. I wasn’t a whore at eighteen, Vihaan, and I’m not one now.”

The look of icy disdain she shot him had him driving a hand into his hair, ready to rip it out because this woman was a complex ball of contradiction from where he stood. “Offering you everything you want is treating you like a whore? Where am I going wrong?”

“I’m not going to sit here and explain the multitude of ways in which what you said was insulting. You know, for just one moment, I’d entertained the idea that you’d changed. That maybe we could build something today without the prejudices of our past affecting us. I should’ve known better. You humiliated me years ago and it’s my fault for giving you the chance to do it again.”

Vera whipped around, heading for the exit, ignoring his utter shock at her announcement.

“I want you,” Vihaan burst out. “However you are, I want you! I’m not asking for more than that.”

“It’s more than I can give. The answer is no. And whatever this is between us, it’s done.” She twisted the doorknob, gasping when he slammed his hands against the wood on either side of her head, trapping her between them. From his vantage point, he could see her chest heaving in anger, but she refused to turn and face him .

“I’m letting you go right now because it is clear you need some space to calm down,” he rumbled, his words hot against the side of her temple. “We will talk again. Soon.”

Vera wasted no time in wrenching the door open when he stepped back, marching out of his house when he called after her.

“We’re not done, Vera.”

Without a backward glance, she answered him as she strode away.

“Yes, we are.”