Chapter 15 - You Dont Have Any Right to Me #2
"Whatever you've convinced yourself is happening here-stop."
Oh.
He looked directly at me.
"You don't have any right to my personal life."
A pause.
"You don't have any right to me."
My ears started ringing.
He'd said me.
Not my phone.
Not my personal life.
Me.
And suddenly every coffee on my desk felt stupid.
Every late night.
Every look.
Every time I'd thought there was something underneath all that anger.
Stupid.
I swallowed.
"Yeah."
My voice barely came out.
Adrian's expression shifted.
Too late.
"You're right."
"Angelica-"
"I don't have any right."
I turned and walked out.
He said my name behind me.
I didn't stop.
I made it back to my desk.
Barely.
My bag was sitting beside my chair.
I reached for it.
Missed the strap the first time.
Oh God.
No.
Absolutely not.
I blinked hard.
Once.
Twice.
It didn't work.
My eyes burned.
I swallowed and tried to breathe normally.
I'd survived this man's temper.
I'd survived him yelling at me across the office.
I'd survived being dragged into his office convinced I was about to lose my job.
None of that had made me cry.
This did.
Because this wasn't about my work.
This wasn't Adrian Vale, CEO, telling me I'd made a mistake.
This was Adrian telling me I'd made a mistake about him.
About us.
Whatever I'd convinced myself was happening.
His words.
So why did it feel like he'd just taken every coffee, every late night, every quiet moment, every time he'd touched me carefully or noticed something nobody else noticed-
and told me I'd imagined all of it?
Then I smelled cedar.
I closed my eyes.
"Angelica."
No.
He moved around my desk until he was standing in front of me.
I looked away.
"Angelica..."
He reached for my hand.
His fingers barely closed around mine before I pulled it away.
"No."
He stopped.
"Don't come close to me."
Something flickered across his face.
Good.
Let him hear it.
I stepped backward.
"You just told me not to come close to you."
"Angelica-"
"So don't come close to me."
"I-"
"You said I don't have any right to you."
My voice cracked.
I hated it.
"So you don't have any right to me either."
His face changed.
He took a step toward me.
I pushed him back.
"No."
"Listen to me."
"No."
"Angelica."
"Whatever I've convinced myself is happening, right?"
He went silent.
That hurt even more.
"Then tell me I imagined it."
Nothing.
"Tell me."
"Angelica-"
"Tell me I imagined every fucking bit of it."
My voice was rising now.
My hands were shaking.
"Tell me you don't stay when I stay."
His jaw tightened.
"Tell me you don't buy my coffee."
Nothing.
"Tell me you didn't hold my hand because I cut my finger."
A tear slipped down my cheek.
Adrian went completely still.
I wiped it away angrily.
"Tell me you don't notice every single time something is wrong with me."
"Angelica."
"Why?"
Another tear came.
I didn't bother with this one.
"Why do you always do this?"
He stared at me.
"If I don't have any right, then why did you let me come close to you?"
"Angelica-"
"Why, Adrian?"
My voice broke completely.
"Why do you stay every time I stay? Why do you buy me coffee? Why do you care if I bleed? Why do you notice when I'm sad?"
He said nothing.
"Why do you care?"
I was crying properly now.
I hated it.
Hated that he was seeing it.
Hated even more that I couldn't stop.
"If you don't like me, then why do you care?"
"Angelica-"
"And if you hate me so much, then why do you freeze too?"
His eyes locked onto mine.
"You do."
I stepped toward him now, angry through the tears.
"You do exactly what I do. Every time we get too close, you freeze."
His face changed.
"I know you do."
My voice rose.
"You look at me like-"
I stopped.
Because I didn't have words for the way he looked at me.
Maybe I never had.
"Then you push me away. Then you come back. Then you push me away again."
I shoved my hands against his chest.
"Why?"
He caught my wrists.
"Why do you make me so confused?"
"Angelica-"
"Why, Adrian?"
I pulled against his hands.
My brain wasn't working anymore.
Nothing was working.
"Stop making me feel like I'm fucking insane and tell me why!"
"Angelica."
"Why?"
My voice cracked into something dangerously close to a sob.
"Tell me why!"
I tried to pull my hands away.
"Let me go."
His grip loosened immediately.
But before I could step away-
he pulled me into him.
I froze.
Completely.
He wasn't holding my hands anymore.
He was holding me.
One arm wrapped tightly around my back.
The other came around my shoulders, pulling me against his chest.
My face pressed into the black shirt I'd spent half the afternoon trying not to stare at.
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
Couldn't think.
Couldn't even properly breathe.
His heart was beating hard beneath my cheek.
Fast.
Much faster than I'd ever imagined Adrian Vale's heart was capable of beating.
His palm moved slowly over my back.
Up.
Down.
Again.
Then into my hair.
His long fingers slid gently through the strands at the back of my head.
I closed my eyes.
Eventually my crying quieted.
Neither of us moved.
His hand kept moving over my hair.
Over my back.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Then his voice came beside my ear.
"I've never seen you cry, Angelica."
My eyes closed tighter.
His hand moved down my hair.
"Whatever I've said to you... whatever I've done..."
He stopped.
"You never cried."
His arm tightened around me.
"You're so strong."
I swallowed.
"Why are you crying?"
That almost made me laugh.
Almost.
Then his voice dropped lower.
"Don't cry."
A pause.
"I'm not worth crying over."
That was not true.
And apparently my hands knew it before the rest of me did.
Because somewhere between my brain shutting down and my heart doing whatever the hell it was doing, my fingers curled into the back of his shirt.
Then my arms went around him.
Tightly.
Adrian stopped moving.
Just for a second.
Then his arms tightened around me.
And that was it.
No questions.
No answers.
No explanations.
We just stood there.
His cheek eventually rested lightly against the top of my head.
One hand stayed against my back.
The other remained tangled gently in my hair.
I didn't know how long we stayed like that.
Long enough for my breathing to settle.
Long enough for the tears to stop.
Long enough that neither of us could pretend this was nothing.
A noise from somewhere outside finally broke the silence.
A car door, maybe.
Adrian's hand stopped moving.
Slowly, we separated.
Neither of us stepped very far away.
I looked up at him.
His eyes moved over my face.
Something tightened in his expression when he saw the tears still sitting beneath my eyes.
Then he lifted his hand.
His fingers touched my cheek.
I went still.
His thumb moved beneath one eye, wiping away the dampness there.
Then the other.
Slowly.
Carefully.
His palm stayed against my cheek.
Warm.
Large enough that I could feel it from my jaw almost to my temple.
I didn't move away.
Neither did he.
His thumb brushed beneath my eye once more.
Then he lowered his hand.
"Let's go home, Angelica."
I nodded.
We collected our things.
Walked to the elevator together.
Rode down together.
Walked through the garage together.
Not one word.
When we reached my car, I unlocked it and opened the door.
Adrian stayed where he was.
I got inside.
He still didn't leave.
He waited until I had my seat belt on and the car was running.
Then our eyes met through the open door.
"Goodnight, Angelica."
"Goodnight, Adrian."
I closed the door.
Somewhere on the drive home, I stopped lying to myself.
There were two things I knew now.
The first was terrifying.
I was falling for Adrian Vale.
No.
That wasn't quite true.
I'd been falling for him for a long time.
And I was falling hard.
The second thing should have been harder to believe.
Somehow, it wasn't.
Adrian could call it unprofessional.
He could tell me I had no right to his personal life.
He could hide behind Ms. Stone and office doors and every wall he'd spent years building.
But I'd felt his arms around me.
I'd felt his hand in my hair.
I'd seen his face when he wiped away the tears he'd put there.
Adrian Vale was falling too.