Chapter 43
You stop breathing when I kiss you…
Is he serious? No, I do not.
Shutting my eyes, I take another deep breath in and release it.
He’s nowhere, Juliana, I’m everywhere, me…
Ugh! I open my eyes and focus, he’s right and I don’t know if I’ve had the chance to dislike it or like it.
I’m sure there could’ve been other ways for him to get me to calm down from the panic attack but it’s too late to go back in time to change that.
I take another breath as I shake away all the nerves and make my way back to the table.
Alaric doesn’t say anything as he watches me sit down. He watches me as I take a sip of my water and I place it.
“Did you put something in it?” I ask.
Alaric glares at me. “Put something in your water in a place full of people so that, what? You could die?”
“Perhaps.” I shrug.
“I don’t plan on wanting you dead, Juliana. I told you I want you around me and I mean that.” He says and this time when he says it, it feels different. There’s something in the way that he’s saying it and I don’t know how I feel about that.
“Want me around?” I repeat.
“Juliana, is there something you need to ask me or should I continue on with our prior conversation?”
“Yes, I need to ask you about kissing me? You’re avoiding the subject and how we probably should not be doing that.”
“I could be a bastard and pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about or I can tell you that yes, I did kiss you. Yes, it happened more than once and yes, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t do it again.”
“That doesn’t sound like an answer I was looking for.”
“And you weren’t looking for me at all yet here I am.”
I blink wondering what he’s talking about. What did he mean by that? But I don’t know if I’m ready to face any of that so I change the subject.
“Edwin…” I say his name, calming myself down. “Why do you want to talk about him?”
“I need you to know that I know everything, even things you didn’t want me to know. I won’t make you talk about it with me or anything like that but I need you to know that, he will be taken care of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Edwin, he can’t be around anymore, do you understand?”
“You’re going to kill him?” I ask. “I don’t want you to kill him, that’s not right.”
Alaric doesn’t say anything for a moment as he stares at me.
“You want that bastard to walk around in the same world as Ricky? For our son to have to come to the realization about how he came into this world? No, Juli, no way, I can’t allow that shit. It’s a no.”
“Our son?” I repeat. Does he realize that he just said he was our son and not just his?
“Yes, is he not your son as well?” Alaric asks. “What’s the problem? You’re back to not wanting to call him your son?”
“No, that’s not it at all. I just… you’ve never called him mine or ours, before.”
Alaric nods.
“Right.” He pauses for a moment. “As I said, I don’t want that garbage around him. Do you understand that?”
“I do but you want him dead.”
“No, I want him gone. Is that a problem for you?”
“Gone, like to jail, gone?”
“Yes, prison… for life if I can since you seem to think I’m going around murdering people.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Good. Now to the next matter?”
“What’s the next matter?” I ask him.
“The next matter is us…”
“Us?”
“Yes and how you’re letting people in the office talk shit about you, practically to your face?”
“I’m not letting them, I just don’t want to have to argue with anyone. I’m not an argumentative person anymore. I’ve moved on.”
“That’s fine but as Mrs Crowne, you cannot continue to let people talk to you however they want to. Repeat after me, I am…”
“I am…”
“Mrs.”
“Mrs.”
“Juliana.”
“Juliana.”
“Crowne.”
“Crowne.”
“And I am not to be fucked with.”
“I am not to be fucked with.” I say with a smile on my face.
“Good. Now, eat your lunch so I can send you back in with less of a sad face and with more confidence. I know you want to know why I’m acting like this but I don’t have that answer, Juli. Just know that I might kiss you in the elevator again, I don’t know why but I will. Any objections?”