Chapter 10
F or four years I’ve planned this night.
Four years of dreaming about when all the stars would align, and the timing would be perfect.
She finished school. Spent three months traveling, playing.
Now she’s here, back in Boston. It was all moving along as I’d planned.
I’d show up here tonight. I’d look into her eyes.
And bam .
That spark.
All that energy that effortlessly flows between us.
It’d still be there. Stronger and brighter than ever. And she’d forget or forgive me instantly for all the horrible things I said to her that night four years ago.
But the “I want to cut your balls off, drop them in a vat of hot oil, and then feed them to you” look in her eyes tells me I’m not going to be granted my fairy-tale wish. That all my plans are about to go to hell and anything I say will fall on deaf ears.
Here’s the thing about that, though. I don’t care.
I mean, I care. But I also don’t care . Because in the four years since I’ve been within touching distance of this woman, I’ve not grown any less obsessed.
I went from being a remorseless playboy bachelor to falling in love to a sorry sack of shit to blindly optimistic and hopeful.
Then she says this…
“You miserable bastard. What the hell are you doing here? You have some fucking nerve showing up and interrupting my night.”
“You look beautiful, Raven. More beautiful than my memories do justice.”
“And you look like shit. How about you crawl back into the hole”—she snorts, rolling her eyes at her miserable pun—“you likely just left. I’m sure she’ll welcome you back.”
I ignore all that. “I was hoping I could take you somewhere and we could talk.”
She laughs sardonically. “Talk? Are you high? I have absolutely nothing to say to you that I didn’t say four years ago when I walked out of that bar. Now go. Leave me alone. I have places to be.”
“Like with your conductor?”
She grins evilly, shrugging.
“He’s too old for you.” I snarl, my eyes casting over her shoulder in the direction of where her fucktwat, handsy, has a reputation worse than mine conductor just was.
She snorts out a bitter guffaw, planting her hands on her waist. “That’s sort of a pot-kettle thing, wouldn’t you say? And I’m not your wife, dick. I never was.”
Ah, I was wondering when she’d circle back to that. Maybe that wasn’t the best way to start things off? I’m already screwing this up and I just got here.
I walked in a nervous wreck while I forced some confidence into my veins and mind.
This is my second chance. My shot. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
That I’m not a quitter. I’m a fighter—thanks to her in large part.
I expected she’d still be mad. But I also assumed she’d have figured it all out by this point. She’s too smart not to.
But seeing her like this…
“I see time and distance haven’t softened you the way I’d hoped. I seem to remember a ceremony. Vows exchanged. Kisses sealing the deal.”
“None of it was real and you know it.”
I get why she’s saying that. Because no, it wasn’t real. I mean, Oliver officiated over our mock wedding, but it was more of a thing than anything else. Oliver had just been ordained online to do another friend’s wedding, and Raven and I had no wedding license.
So… not real.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t mean what I said to her that night. All of it. I did. Every word. It’s how we got to this mess of a place. I loved her, so I had to save her. Even from herself.
But all she remembers, all she knows , is that a few days later I shredded her heart into pulp.
Intentionally. Cruelly. Unrepentantly.
As is never the case with me, suddenly I am at a loss for words.
Our eyes meet and neither of us looks away. Instead, I stare. We stare. Because yeah, she’s most definitely staring.
Directly. Unabashedly. Obsessively.
It’s not all in anger. I’m the spark to her blowtorch.
She might be burning hot, wanting to melt the skin from my face, but dammit if the way she’s looking at me doesn’t also make my dick harden in my slacks.
The effect of her eyes on me is no less potent than it was four years ago.
If anything, my reaction is stronger for having been denied it for so long.
“Raven.” I whisper her name, a low, gentle hum, my heart a chaotic wreck, making my palms sweat.
“God, just being this close to you again. Just seeing you. I’ve dreamed of little else for four years.
Please, can we talk?” I swallow thickly, my throat bone dry, my insides tumbling with desire.
“I have so much to say. So much to tell you.”
She’s so fucking beautiful, I can hardly stand to be this close and not touch her.
She shakes her head. “I could have gone forever without seeing you again,” she bites out acerbically, bitterness clinging to every syllable.
“And I couldn’t go another second without seeing you again,” I throw back at her, taking in every line of her face, the glimmering aquamarine of her eyes. “I still have it, you know. Your note. It’s in my wallet where it’s been since you left it for me.”
“You do? Can I see it?” She holds her palm out and for a second, I flinch in the direction of my wallet before I think better of it.
“You’ll rip it up.”
“Sure as Santa and reindeer at Christmas, I will. You shouldn’t hold on to it anyway. That was written hastily and placed on your door impulsively. It’s certainly no longer true.”
“Liar, liar pants on fire. Because if that were the case, my little bird, then why are you still so angry?”
Her fists ball up, fury slicing through her features with the heat of a thousand suns. Somehow, I’m standing before her. Close. Right here. I nearly groan. She smells like all my greatest memories and deepest heartache. Like sweat and heat and lust and madness and fucking sex. Like my Raven.
How can I not draw closer? How could I not come tonight?
Does she know about all the nights I’ve come before this one, traveled all over the world, sat in the shadows, and kept myself away so she’d have it all?
Which she does. The woman has taken the cello and made it her bitch. Won awards. Earned accolades. Has rock stars banging on her door, though I’m not supposed to know about that. She’s been offered positions by every major symphony from every corner of the world.
And yet, she chose this one. This. One. Here in Boston. The city where she knew, she fucking knew , I was living in.
Her fist lands in the center of my chest and for a second, I revel in that. She’s touching me. That is until she pushes me back with all her might as I press into her, forcing her fist deeper against me.
The heat of my body seeps into her knuckles and I watch as she shudders at the feel of me beneath her touch.
Even through the layers of my suit. That fist pounds again, harder this time, wanting to break me apart.
But then stops, her gaze shifting to my left shoulder, wondering about it.
Knowing the scar is now likely fully healed, a scar she spent hours tracing with delicate fingers. With her tongue.
She fixed me. Made me whole. Gave me purpose and reason, and I broke her heart in the end. I know I did. I know I have miles and years and hurdles of heartbreak to make up for.
“Why are you here? Why are you doing this to me?” Her voice cracks. “Why tonight? Why tonight of all nights?”
“Because it had to be tonight,” I tell her.
“It had to be here. I tried for three weeks to find you at the compound, but you were never home or if you were, you did a brilliant job of hiding from me.” I push out a breath, my eyes locking with hers once more, my expression one of pure awe.
“I’m so fucking proud of you, Raven. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of for yourself, you’ve accomplished and more. ”
Tears line her eyes that she refuses to let fall.
I hate that she’s still so sad. That the pain I caused her still has this effect on her.
That me just standing here cuts through all her layers and walls and fortresses and castles and villages and towns and cities she’s erected.
She built a world of resistance around her heart with the singular purpose of keeping me out.
I know it. I can see it all over her. But the fact that I can still sneak through the back door—and no, that’s not a dirty metaphor, at least not yet—and disarm her completely is why I’ll never give up.
My hand comes up along her face, brushing her long hair back and out of the way as my fingers dive into it, cupping her jaw.
Her skin.
Fuck, her skin sets mine on fire. So soft and silky and electric.
My breath hitches, rattling in my chest as her eyes darken.
My body inches in. My head dips. Those now half-mast eyes of hers cling to my lips.
Beneath her fist, my heart pounds, and I place my hand over her heart, smirking when I feel how hers perfectly matches mine.
Someone walks past us, their gaze curious, and I grab her arm with my other hand, dragging her deeper into the shadows of the hall behind the side stage curtains. It’s darker back here. More intimate and it drives me against her, holding her tight.
“Don’t touch me,” she seethes, shaking my touch from her skin. “I hate you.”
My hand falls, my expression hardening. “No. You just hate what I did to you.”
“No. I hate how you did it. I knew Luca Fritz was going to break my heart from the start. I knew the power you had over me. That’s not what has me bleeding vitriol now and we both know it.
I hate that I gave you so much of myself when I should have known better.
I hate that I believed you when you swore love and devotion and forever.
If you had just stuck to your every woman go-to plan of treating me like a fling from the start, I would have been better off. ”
“You never got it? All this time, you never understood what I was doing?”
“I did understand! I just didn’t care,” she yells. “You were a liar and a user and a piece of shit who didn’t care who he hurt or how he did it.”
I grunt, running a hand through my hair. “Always so honest. So fucking brave and resilient. You’ve got it all wrong, haven’t you?”
“Not anymore. Especially where you’re concerned. I don’t want the flowers. I don’t know why you continue to do that when I always send them back.”
I get right up in her face, my anger getting the best of me as I snarl against her jaw, ready to bite her. Mark her. Fucking claim her, bullshit be damned. “Didn’t my man tell you? There is no more sending them back. I’ve been patient, but my patience is done.”
“That’s not your call to make.” She shoves me back. But her eyes are hooded. Dark. Turning my already hard dick to stone. “It’s mine, asshole. I left you and that island four years ago. I was done with you then and there, Luca, the note notwithstanding. I believe I told you that in the bar.”
I smile at the way she says my name, a smirk I’m unable to control on my lips that pulls at the most venomous parts of her.
It antagonizes and I don’t care. I want it.
Harder. Rougher. I edge in closer, my body nearly pressed to hers, my hand back on her jaw, forcing her gaze right into mine.
My nose glides along hers, across her cheek, and into her neck where I take a deep inhale.
Goddamn intoxicating.
My eyes close, but it’s her shiver that tells me she’s still an unwilling slave to my touch.
My hot breath fans her skin as I whisper into her ear, “That’s where you’re wrong, Little Bird. No more flying away from me. I let you go and had to watch as you spread your wings, but now you’ve flown home. Back to me.”
She pushes me back for what feels like the thousandth time, and I growl, more than frustrated.
“Dammit, Raven. I know you’re mad. I know you hate me.
I know you have a good reason to. But I don’t care.
I never cared about that because I always knew we’d get back here.
Please, you have to listen to me. It’s been four years of living without you.
Living with the knowledge that the best and worst thing I ever did is what I did to you. ”
“Fuck you, Luca. I didn’t come home for you. I came home for me. I came home for your mom. You are not part of my world or my equation any longer. And you never will be again.”
Shouldering past me, she takes off. Running at full speed for the exit.
Dammit. How is it possible I never stop screwing up with her?