Chapter 20 #2
Her eyes burned as tears gathered, but she refused to look away.
"So why are you angry now?" she asked. "Why are you blaming me for believing you? For preparing myself for the day you walked away?"
Her voice cracked slightly.
"You kept reminding me I was something temporary in your life, Xavier. So I made sure you were temporary in mine."
The words left her lips, but they hurt her just as much as they hurt him.
She had never thought it would become real.
She had spent so much time preparing herself for the day Xavier would leave.
She had listened to him when he told her again and again that he would not stay, that what they had was temporary, that one day he would walk away from her life.
So she had forced herself to accept it. She had built walls around her heart, convincing herself that if she expected him to leave, the pain would not destroy her when it happened.
But it did.
Because when he actually walked away, it hurt more than she had ever imagined it would.
Xavier’s hold on her arm tightened as he hovered above her, his gaze locked onto hers.
Elise lay beneath him, naked, her hair spread across the pillow.
And yet, she was telling him that she had already decided she was never going to be his.
His jaw clenched as he stared down at her, his breathing heavy, his emotions barely contained.
"Elise Foster," he said, his voice low and commanding, the kind of tone that made people obey him without question. "You are only mine. Get this in your head."
His thumb brushed against her skin as his expression hardened.
"And I promise you, I am not leaving you. Even if I die, you are going to live as my widow. In my world, there is no stupid thing like a second fucking marriage."
His eyes burned into hers.
"You are going to live with me," he said quietly. "And you are going to die with me."
Elise stared at him, her eyes blinking as she processed the ruthless certainty in his words.
Then slowly, her expression changed.
The softness disappeared.
She looked at him with a cold, fearless stare.
"That's not going to happen," she said firmly. "I have already broken up—"
Xavier leaned closer, his frustration visible in the way his jaw tightened and his fingers curled against the sheets beside her.
“Elise Foster, you need to get this through your head.”
Xavier’s voice was rough, dangerous. His dark eyes locked onto hers, filled with possessiveness.
“You are mine. I am never leaving you. Do you understand?” His jaw tightened as his hand moved around her, holding her close. “Even if I die, you are going to live as my widow.”
His expression hardened, the arrogance and dominance that had always been a part of him rising to the surface.
“In my world, there is no such thing as a break up. There is no other man who gets to have you. There is no one who will take my place.” His fingers tightened slightly, his gaze never leaving hers. “You are going to live with me, Elise.”
A pause followed, heavy with the certainty of his words.
“And you are going to die with me.”
For a few seconds, Elise simply stared at him.
She blinked slowly, almost as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Then her expression turned cold.
“That’s not going to happen. I have already broken up wi—”
She didn’t get to finish.
The moment those words left her lips, something in Xavier snapped.
His hand moved behind her neck, his fingers wrapping around her as he pulled her toward him with a force that stole the rest of her sentence. Before she could react, he shifted above her, his body covering hers completely, leaving her trapped beneath him.
Then his mouth found hers.
Elise pushed against his chest, trying to create distance, but Xavier only tightened his hold.
He kissed her like he was trying to erase the words she had spoken.
By the time she finally managed to break away, her breathing was uneven, her eyes burning with anger as she stared at him.
“Stop kissing me!” Her voice was sharp enough to cut through the silence. “You need to leave now. It’s already morning.”
She glared at him, refusing to look away.
“We are already broken up, Xavier. We are not in a relationship anymore.”
Instead of releasing her, his grip tightened.
“Xavier—”
But he didn’t allow her to finish.
Within moments, he was kissing her again, his restraint completely gone.
He licked every inch of her like a man who had been deprived of something he considered essential to his existence, like he had been starving for her and had finally been given the chance to breathe again.
***
Elise shoved Xavier out of the apartment and slammed the door in his face.
A second later, she yanked it open again, glaring at him with enough fury to set the hallway on fire.
"Don't come back here," she snapped. "It's been a week. Stop coming to my house every single night."
Xavier didn't look offended in the slightest.
He simply leaned one shoulder against the wall, slipped a hand into his pocket, and looked at her with an infuriatingly smug smile, as though being thrown out by her was the most ordinary part of his day.
"Why?" he asked lazily. "Doesn't it feel like we're a happily married couple? I return home every night."
"You force your way in," Elise shot back through gritted teeth.
"And we cuddle in bed."
"You don't let me out of the bed."
"And every morning," he continued without missing a beat, "we have slow, romantic sex."
Heat rushed into Elise's cheeks, but the blush only made the glare she shot him even sharper.
Xavier's smile deepened.
"And then," he said as he took a slow step toward her, "you walk me to the apartment door before I leave for the office, and I kiss you goodbye like this."
Before she could react, he reached out, caught her firmly by the waist, and pulled her into a quick, wet kiss.
Elise shoved against his chest the moment he let her go, then smacked him hard on the arm.
The slap echoed through the hallway.
Xavier winced, rubbing the spot with an exaggerated look of pain while she glared at him.
"Go back to your home and don't come back!" she snapped, her eyes throwing daggers at him. "I told you we have already broken up, but you're still sticking to me. Does that even look good on you? You're the CEO of a company, not some teenage stalker."
Instead of looking offended, Xavier chuckled.
He took another slow step toward her, completely ignoring the warning in her eyes. His hands slid behind his back as he folded them there, standing tall in front of her with the effortless confidence of a man who had never once accepted defeat.
"I can be anything you want," he said with a faint smile. "What do you want? Do you want to see how well I can stalk you?"
Elise let out an angry growl and planted both palms against his chest, pushing him farther away from the doorway.
"Leave."
Xavier barely moved.
He sighed, lifted his gaze back to hers.
"Baby, when are we going back home?" he asked casually. "Your apartment is adorable, but there isn't much space for us to change positions."
His eyes lingered on her for a long moment before he added, his voice dropping into a confident murmur,
"I want to lay you down on the piano in my house... and then make you cum all over it."
Elise looked shell-shocked.
Her eyes widened as she quickly looked around the quiet corridor, making sure there was no one outside to hear the outrageous words that had just come out of Xavier's mouth. Satisfied that the hallway was empty, she turned back to him, her face burning with embarrassment.
"Stop talking like this," she snapped, lowering her voice as she shot another glance down the corridor. "You're standing out in the hallway. What if somebody hears you?"
Xavier only looked at her, completely unconcerned.
"I am not returning to your house," she continued firmly. "We have already broken up. I told you. I'm never coming back!"
For the first time, something shifted in Xavier's expression.
The smug smile faded ever so slightly, replaced by a look she had never expected to see on his face.
Pain.
It was fleeting, almost imperceptible, but she saw it.
The look in his eyes made something twist painfully inside her chest. Before she could let herself dwell on it, she grabbed the doorknob and quickly pulled the door shut.
Bang.
The apartment door closed between them.
Outside, Xavier remained standing in the silent corridor.
The smile that had been on his face disappeared completely. His shoulders seemed to slacken as his gaze slowly dropped to the floor, the weight in his chest becoming heavier than he could suppress.
For a long moment, he simply stood there, staring at the closed door.
Then, lowering his head, he let out a quiet, bitter laugh that carried no amusement at all.
"You are the only one who can almost make me cry, Elise," he murmured under his breath.
His voice was rough.
Soft.
Disturbed.
Leaving her apartment building, Xavier drove straight to the office.
The day passed buried under endless work, but his mind wasn't on the documents piling up on his desk. It was on getting back to her apartment as quickly as possible.
Ever since Elise had left his house, he had stopped going home altogether.
The office had become the only place where he could distract himself, yet without her, even that had become unbearable. Every hour dragged on longer than the last, and by the time evening began to settle over the city, all he wanted was to finish work and go back to her.
Just as he was about to leave, the phone on his desk started ringing.
Xavier frowned impatiently, snatched it off the table, and put it to his ear.
"Yeah?"
"Come to Florence Restaurant on Fourth Street."
Amara's voice came through the other end of the call.
"We're having dinner. Come join us."
Xavier halted in the middle of the office, one hand slipping into his pocket as he looked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"I was just going home," he replied. "Let's do it another day."