“You can’t do this to me!” she screams at the top of her lungs. I’m sure we are disturbing the dead.
She pushes me back, but I don’t even budge.
“You can’t force me not to be sorry. You can’t uproot my life as I know it. You can’t demand and expect me to just fucking obey!”
She buries her face in my suit, but her fists still feebly hit my chest over and over again.
“You can’t do this!” she whispers through her tears.“You can’t do this to me, Graham! You can’t make me fall in love with you!”
My eyes dilate as her words wash over me, and a psycho smile spreads across my face.
You can’t make me fall in love with you. Triumph floods my veins, tasting way fucking sweeter than any other victory in my life.
She is falling. Right into the center of my web, exactly where she belongs.
Wait a minute…
Her mother’s death anniversary.
Today.
Which means today is her birthday.
She has never had a proper birthday. She spent every birthday sad.
Unacceptable. Absolutely fucking unacceptable.
She should direct all that guilt at me. I am the monster here. I am the one who ruins lives. She is nothing but light.
I scoop her into my arms. She doesn’t even have the strength to fight me anymore. I slide her into the leather seat of the Cadillac, slamming the door shut before getting behind the wheel.
“It’s your birthday,” I state.“How do you want to spend it?”
Maya glares at me through her swollen eyes.
“I don’t celebrate my birthday, Graham.”
“Why?” I demand.
She lets out a breathless laugh-sob. I would have thought it was beautiful if I didn’t know it came from nothing but pain.
“Because it’s the day my mother died,” she mutters, rolling her eyes.“I told you that.”
“And I told you not to fucking say that anymore!” I roar, slamming my palm against the steering wheel.
Maya flinches.
“If you want to blame anyone for taking her away, blame the fucking man in the sky who willed it to be that way. Blame the universe. I don’t fucking care. You can even blame me. Just not yourself.”
She shakes her head, angling her body away from me.
Everything I seem to say only makes it worse. But with her, I don’t have a filter. When we are together like this, I’m not calculating.
I’m just myself.
I grit my teeth and start the Cadillac. I drive her straight to the luxury district, forcing designers to bring out diamonds, emeralds, and gold that could buy a small country.
I buy her all of it.
