AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The bitchiness in her tone puts me on edge. “You could at least hear me out.”
“Why?” Agatha leans back in her chair. “Isn’t that what you came to say? That you’re sorry for kissing me and then running away and avoiding me because suddenly your feelings became too real.” She stands up and faces me, fury radiating from her. “Did you think I would sit around and wait for you till you decided to man up? I’m nobody’s fool, Ian. If you didn’t want me, you shouldn’t have put your mouth on me.”
I close my eyes, not because her words slash at me like a knife, but because under the anger and bitterness that flows from her, I can hear the pain inside her. I broke her heart. If she actually didn’t care, she would have heard me and simply dismissed me, coldly. But this is Agatha suffering, lashing out at me in an attempt to hurt me back, to make me feel some of her pain.
She doesn't realize that simply seeing her torment is enough to send me to my knees.
“I do want you,” I say in the ensuing silence. “I’ve always wanted you, Agatha.”
I see her eyes darken with emotion. Her mouth opens but there is a knock on the door, and she glances behind me.
I look over my shoulder to see Nick standing there, holding a basket in his arms that holds small, wrapped things in it. “Hey, this just arrived. There isn’t a—”
I can hear the strain in Agatha’s voice. “In the conference room. Put them with the others.”
The young man gives her an odd look. “The delivery guy said—”
“Nick.” Agatha’s tone is sharp, and he nods before slipping away.
I turn to look at her. “What—” but my words die when I see the look on her face. She quickly schools her features, but I saw the fear. Suddenly, I am looking at the odd things in her room with an entirely different perspective. The baseball bat, the mace: all things she can use to protect herself.
“Agatha, what’s—”
She doesn’t let me finish my sentence. “I don’t have time for this right now, Ian. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
I don’t budge. “What’s going on?”
She starts. “Excuse me?”
“What’s with the bat and the mace on the cabinet?” My tone is hard.
She studies me, and I see the tremble in her hands before she sits down and puts them out of sight. “What, safety’s a crime now?”
I walk over to the door and then close it.
“What are you doing?” she asks, stiffly. I turn around to look at her.
“Something’s wrong. Really wrong. And I want to know what it is.”
She blinks, and I see regret flash through her eyes. She shakes her head, and I see the hint of her strength and quiet anger. “I am not your concern, Ian.”
I narrow my eyes. “The hell you aren’t!”
She sits in her seat, her beautiful hair tempered into a braid that makes her look so young, blue eyes that can’t quite hide the pain inflicted on her along with the kind of fear that I had never seen from her. Her back is straight as a rod, and she watches me, not a scowl on her stunning face, just a smoothed-out expression.
I hate it.
I hate being shut out by her like this.
I know I deserve this and worse, but I can’t see past that glimmer of terror in her eyes when she saw the basket.
She taps her fingers on her desk now, a movement which gives away her nerves. “Funny how now you seem to have the time to ask me what’s going on.”
Her words throw me off. “What do you mean?”
She just stares at me, and I suddenly remember her phone call. Now that I think about it, it was pretty late, and she sounded off, as if she were scared.
“Why did you call me last week, Agatha?” I ask quietly.
