Chapter 27
The amount of physical restraint to not follow Calvin to the casino was not something to be proud of.
It had been two hundred and thirty-one days since my last bet.
Two hundred and thirty-one days since I pissed away the last twenty thousand dollars in my trust fund.
Two hundred and thirty-one days since I hit rock bottom.
And I had been so close, so goddamn fucking close, to being back to square one.
If not for Livi standing at my side, I may have given in to the inner voice screaming to give in to temptation again.
After all, what was one more time? Think of it like a reward or a way to prove to myself that I could gamble for fun and then walk away.
No!
Because deep down, deep in my rotten core, I knew I’d never be able to walk away once I started, not while that voice remained slithering around my brain like a poisonous snake.
I needed professional help.
I just needed to grow a set of balls and walk into my therapist’s office and admit I had a problem to someone other than myself.
If only it were that easy.
Livi remained silent during the drive back to my Grand-mère’s. She sat in the passenger seat, eyes glued to that damn card Calvin had given her.
I could have choked Calvin with my bare hands for giving her that card.
And if there hadn’t been so many witnesses around on the beach, I may well have done it.
I knew Calvin was only trying to help, like he tried five years ago when I came to him to borrow money.
It was the day after his wedding—shitty thing to do, I know. I’d thrown a hefty chunk of my trust fund at a couple of casinos in Vegas and I got scared.
Scared that Frederic might notice the money had disappeared and I had fuck all to show for it.
Calvin gave me the money without hesitation, but with the stipulation I told him what was going on.
Call it desperation, or maybe the fact I was so tired of hiding my problems from everyone and so downright exhausted of feeling alone, whatever the reason, I told Calvin everything.
He was the first person I ever confided in.
Like always, I promised him I’d get help. I swore to him that I’d call his mother, Valentina, who specialized in therapy for addicts. I gave him my word, despite his protest, that I’d find a way to pay him back.
But that all turned out to be one big fucking lie.
Arriving at the house, neither of us spoke a single word as we went inside and found the place silent and in darkness.
Frederic and Penelope must have gone back to their house in Nice.
Thank fuck.
I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough to face Frederic right now.
My Grand-mère must’ve gone to bed already. Having Penelope visit always took it out of her, not that she would ever admit to it. My Grand-mère liked to pretend she could keep up with looking after a child, but it left her exhausted.
“Are you hungry?” I broke the silence, heading toward the kitchen.
I could feel her eyes burning a hole in the back of my neck as she followed behind me.
“There’s leftover chicken and broccoli casserole, or there’s probably some of Penny’s tuna pasta.
” Ignoring the way she kept looking at me, I grabbed some cheese from the fridge. “Or I can make us some grilled cheese?”
Silence responded.
Rolling my lips together, I busied myself grabbing some bread and a knife. This was the moment she’d leave; I felt it in my bones.
After all, Cassandra ran the second she found out.
Her words about my problems weighing her down and being unable to shoulder my burdens rang in my ears.
My hands trembled as I attempted to slice through the cheese.
Warmth enveloped my knuckles, stopping the knife from wobbling. “Look at me.” Livi’s other hand took my chin and gently turned my head. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
I swallowed hard. “Trust me, it’s the furthest thing from okay.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? Talk to me.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to keep my voice even. “I fucked up big time.”
The hand upon my chin moved, the heat of her palm settling on my cheek. I leaned into her touch, swallowing a soft groan as her thumb stroked the apple of my cheek.
I didn’t deserve an ounce of her gentleness, but I clung to it.
“I came to New York, not out of choice but out of desperation.” I forced myself to shut out the faceless demon in my mind, screaming at me to stay silent, and instead focused on how soft her skin felt on mine. “All my life, I’ve had these impulses. Urges and compulsions, I can’t control.”
Saying nothing, her thumb continued to stroke back and forth.
“It started with food when I was a boy, controlling what I ate and counting calories. It let me feel like I was in control of my own life. It didn’t matter that I was the one who found my mother’s lifeless body.
My father was trying his goddamn hardest to join her, or that my eldest brothers became so twisted by grief, or that my Grand-mère was breaking herself apart to look after three boys she never asked for, because all those were outside my control. Food, however, was in my control.”
Opening my eyes, Livi’s unblinking and glassy gaze stared up at me with a quiet understanding.
“The anxiety has always been there. It took me a long time to realize what was wrong with me. In university, I turned to weed to soothe it. I won’t lie, I smoked a lot during university, too much if I am honest. It’s a miracle that I pulled through and graduated, but those were the years I learned to lead a double life. ”
“I can’t imagine how lonely you must have felt.”
“Being alone protected me.”
She quickly wiped the tear rolling down her cheek with the back of her hand.
I exhaled unsteadily. “Weed helped, until it didn’t.
That’s when the Xanax came. My doctor suggested it when the panic attacks started taking over my life.
” The same doctor who was fired years later for malpractice and over-prescribing opioids.
“I knew it was highly addictive; I mean, I was in medical school, I knew better than to start taking benzos, but I didn’t care.
Because I felt like I was losing control again. ”
A bump upstairs made us both jump.
Awareness suddenly gripped hold of me. My Grand-mère, the one woman I never wanted to find out about my problems, was upstairs.
She’d given up everything to give my brothers and me a good life.
I couldn’t—I wouldn’t let my failures burden her.
Taking her hand from my cheek, my skin missing her touch instantly, I led Livi up the stairs to the spare bedroom Grand-mère set up for us.
Closing the door firmly, Livi surveyed the bedroom slowly. The place screamed my Grand-mère. Lavender painted walls, white linen curtains, and a huge piece of art that I recognized to be a canvas by Orla, Frederic’s fiancée, hung over the king-sized bed.
The one king-sized bed.
I forgot that by letting my Grand-mère believe that Livi was my girlfriend, she, of course, expected us to sleep in the same bed for the whole weekend.
Speaking of the bed, Livi sat on the edge and patted the mattress. “Please keep talking.”
My thigh touched hers, our arms pressing together as I sat beside her.
“You know, I don’t remember when the gambling actually started.
” Unable to bring myself to look at her, I stared down at my hands.
“But when I started, it unlocked something hiding inside me. The casinos were the first place I was able to shut everything off; it’s where I felt like I was back in total control, which obviously is the furthest thing from the truth. ”
I blinked several times. Why was my vision so blurry?
“Every time I won? I couldn’t stop chasing that feeling.
It didn’t matter that in the meantime I was losing money quicker than I could count, because when I won, I no longer felt hollow.
” Something wet coated my cheeks. “I told myself to stop, but when I realized how much money I’d lost, money that Frederic gave me, I knew I couldn’t stop. Not until I won it all back.”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” she soothed. “You’re doing so well right now.”
“The harder I tried to win the money back, the more I lost.”
One second, she was beside me, the next, she was straddling my lap. Both hands cupped my cheeks, her thumbs wiping the wetness—my goddamn pathetic tears—away.
“Eight months ago, I lost it all. Every cent, every dime Frederic put in my trust fund…it’s all gone. I lost everything.”
“Oh, Elliott,” she sighed softly. “Is that why you left Canada? Because you didn’t want him to find out?”
I nodded weakly. “He can’t ever know the truth. He can’t know how badly I fucked up, how much of a disappointment I am.”
“Your brother will understand. If he is a decent human being, he’ll be more worried about you than the money.”
“That’s the problem, he will want to fix it, and I can’t let him do that.” I tried to swallow past the rock in my throat. “It’s why I need the job promotion. The money from that job will let me replace everything I’ve lost.”
A couple years working like a damn dog and I’d undo what I did. Then and only then would I allow myself to start living for me again.
Chewing her bottom lip, she tilted my head up to meet her eyeline. “This is too much for one person to fight on their own, Elliott. Do you still feel the compulsions?”
“Sometimes.”
Most of the time.
All of the time…
The urges, the need to be in control, to chase that euphoria I once felt, remained embedded in my skin.
“But I need you to know that I haven’t gambled since then, and I stopped taking the benzos four weeks ago,” I said firmly. “And I do have a therapist; I just haven’t managed to find the strength to go yet. But I will soon.” I hope.
“Going to therapy, getting help, is a big step. You should be freaking proud of yourself.”
“I know I still have a lot to do to get truly better...”
“What you’ve accomplished so far is huge.”
I sniffed. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“The fact you told me is a massive step. I bet you wouldn’t have done that a year ago, am I right?” She forced me to look at her. “Thank you for trusting me, Elliott.”
“Look, you didn’t sign up for any of this shit. My burdens aren’t yours to bear. So, when we get back to New York, I won’t be upset if you call this whole thing off—”
Slender fingers pressed on my lips, silencing me. “Look at me. I’m not going anywhere, you hear me? I’m right here with you.”
Relief flooded through me like a dam breaking.
“But I want to help you.”
My hands grabbed her waist, pulling her forward until our foreheads touched. “You’ve done more for me these past five weeks than you’ll ever know.”
“I have no idea how, it always feels like you’re the one helping me,” she chuckled lightly, the tip of her nose brushing mine.
“I like being the one you can rely on,” I said truthfully, “but believe me, you’ve helped me more than you’ll ever realize. Sometimes, I think we were meant to meet.”
“Like fate?”
“Something like that. I guess I’m trying to say, I believe you came into my life when you did for a reason.”
I struck gold finding Livi.
And although I knew she wasn’t mine to keep, hell, she wasn’t mine at all, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning forward and sealing my lips to hers.
This whole thing we were doing was a game of pretend.
But as her body melted into mine, a soft exhale escaping from her and allowing my tongue to slip into her mouth, I knew I was done playing pretend.
Her hands inched down my neck. The tips of her fingers caressed my skin, running over every bump and groove of my throat.
She tasted like fresh summer rain after weeks of drought.
One of my hands cupped the back of her neck and angled her head back, giving me more of her mouth to explore.
My other hand snaked along her ribcage until I reached the underside of her breast. Her breasts were the perfect size, sitting perfectly in the palm of my hand through her T-shirt.
All my blood travelled south the second I realized she wasn’t wearing a bra.
Sweeping my thumb along her already rock-hard nipple, the little whimper that broke free from her brought my cock to painful attention and pressed right into her center.
I half expected her to stop.
But when she ground her hips down into mine, I nearly came there and then on the spot.
It had been over a year now since I touched anyone else, never mind myself, and if she kept pushing herself down on me like that, I wasn’t going to last.
Her lips left mine and moved to my neck. Teeth nipped at my sensitive skin, her hands moving under my T-shirt and along the ridges of my stomach.
“Fuck, Livi,” I hissed. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this.”
She moaned softly against my throat as her cunt came down and rubbed hard along my erection. Fucking hell, the corners of my vision darkened.
I tipped my head back. “Tell me you’ve dreamt about this too.”
She responded by grinding and teasingly rotating her hips down into me harder until precum leaked into my boxers.
Goddamn, this woman was going to be the end of me—what a way to go.
Grabbing at her T-shirt, I needed to see her naked. I needed to touch every inch of her, to burn the feel of her to memory.
Her top was halfway up, the teasing glimpse of her dusty pink nipples coming into view and… Holy shit! Were those nipple piercings?!
This woman never failed to surprise me.
Water pooled in my mouth at the mere idea of taking her pierced nipples between my lips and seeing if she tasted exactly how I had dreamt for weeks now.
Running footsteps and an excited giggle that sounded awfully like Penelope echoed outside the bedroom, bringing us both to a screeching halt.
Talk about bad fucking timing.
That was all it took to break whatever spell had fallen over us both.
Livi stood up suddenly and stepped back from me. My lap suddenly felt very cold and my cock painfully yearned for her to sit back down.
“Um, I’m going to go and shower,” she stumbled, hands running through her hair. “Maybe it would be better if you slept on the floor tonight.”
Leaving me without another word, I sat there unable to do anything but replay the moment over and over again.
I ran the tips of my fingers along my lips where the echo of her kiss lingered.
Livi swore to never fall in love again; she swore to keep her heart for only herself, but sitting on the edge of the bed, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
I wanted her to break all her rules for me, and I was going to do everything in my power to be the man worthy of her taking a risk on.