I doubt she’ll ever be able to touch that little heart again without thinking of me.
Which is only fair, of course, since I’ve seldom gone a minute since our meeting without thinking of her.
She.Haunts. Me.
Like a wraith. Like an angel. Like a soulmate.
There’s nothing prettier than seeing her true feelings saturate her icy blue eyes as I fit my fingers in the seams of her fragile soul and rip until she comes undone. Her flawless glass persona splinters, and I can’t breathe in the full presence of her. My lungs lock up. My heart stampedes. My head goes blessedly quiet.
It’s like suffocating—but better.
I long to pack my bloodstream with the shimmering dust that falls from her breaking pieces. I yearn to have her shards slice open my veins. I’m desperate to see her pale, pale skin fill with red forme.
I fear there are a grand many unwelcome and inappropriate things I desire where it concerns Azalea.
Cutting my attention to the burner phone beside my dinner plate, I sigh again. Taking a bite of my pizza, I flip the device open and reread the proper message asking if she can brutally murder me.
Because she—genuinely—wants to murder me. And brutally, for that matter. The kind of woman who holds her breath whenever someone across the room from her sneezes wants to brutalize me as thoughbrutalizing someoneisn’t inherently a messy task.
Of all the plans to go off script, it just had to be the one that involved sending a faux assassin recruitment team to intercept Azalea on her way to her car after I made her stay late with me in the office.
I kept making up work and reasons for her to stick around purely so it’d be dark when she left. Purely so theatmospherewould be right.
She was supposed to be disturbed and shocked when my hired men approached her. She was supposed to be frightened. She was supposed to run back inside to me for protection. Tears in her eyes, she was supposed to tell me there were people tryingto kill me. Broken, she was supposed to realize that she, dearly, does not want me killed.
Yesterday wassupposedto be the start of her realization that she harbors affection for me.
Alas.
I’d be more disappointed if I weren’t such an opportunist.
Did I—delusionally—think Azalea had feelings for me already and obtaining her heart would be effortless? Sure.
Do I now have the far better option of cultivating her feelings for me personally, from the ground up?Absolutely.
There’s truly nothing better than turning hate into adoration. No love is deeper than one that overcomes loathing. This might not be the original plan, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it better. It’s more stable. More long-term. Less likely to erode once infatuation fades and she sees me for what I truly am.
After all,what I truly amis a horrible,horribleperson. If she already knows that, it’s better for the both of us. Firstly, because guiding her toward wanting me shall be a far more honest endeavor, and secondly, because she’s the kind of person who needs a monster.
This has potential even if it’s little more than another gamble.
I’d do a great number of things forpotential.
Even wager my life.
Smiling, I let the picture of both the players involved in this love game take shape in my mind. Me, here, now. And her. One floor down in this high-rise apartment building.
She’s probably also having dinner, completely unaware that I’m daydreaming about our potential right above her head. Shortly after she started working for me, she moved in, and since my private elevator leads down to the back of the gated car park near a personal garage for my SUV, we’ve never crossed pathshere. I only even know where she lives because she works for me so her home address is in her folder.
I planned to reveal the happy coincidence after she confessed her feelings. Now, I wouldn’t put it past her to attempt a break-in murder if she knew. Even though I had my hired actor, Anthony, tell her not to act on her own, there are very few things I wouldn’t put past Azalea Pastella.
The woman, like me, is nuts.
Refreshingly nuts.
Cupping my hand to my mouth, I melt. While I succumb to the heat, I plot.
The cards are in my hand. So…
