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Sometimes it scares me how connected I feel to her. Even when we’re apart, I intrinsically know when she’s okay or when she’s troubled.
The day I had Emiliano take her to my house, I felt her disturbance. For the first time in years, I was riddled with guilt. All I wanted was to rush to her side and explain it all,tell her that Ilove her and can’t imagine a life without her.
But business took longer than expected, almost frustrating the soul out of me.
By the time I returned, she had closed the door to her heart. The walls I had so painstakingly overcome were well in place again.
She’s tested my patience ever since. I’m used to people following orders. Her defiance and stubbornness are as dangerous as they are inconvenient, but if I’m being honest, her unwillingness to just accept her fate has garnered my respect.
It will be futile, of course, and her surrender will be all the sweeter.
I’ve destroyed her barricades once; I can do it again. It will be easier this time because the groundwork is laid. She has feelings for me. I’ve seen it in her eyes and felt it in her touch. She just needs more time to come to terms with her new life.
Keeping her is all that matters.
She’s claimed so many of my firsts already and right now, for the first time, I want to be irresponsible and forget all my obligations.
Unknowingly, she pushes me to go for the things I want rather than the things that are expected of me.
And right now, I want to kiss her and fondle her luscious curves and take her body.
No! Rein it in.
I’m keeping her forever. I will make this work. There is no other option.
Ella stirs in my arms, and I briefly wonder if it’s my boner poking her awake. Her eyes flutter open, her breath catching.
“Hey, princess,” I say, caressing her face with one finger. “Are you feeling better after your rest?”
Startled, yet apathetic, her eyes look so sad. It breaks my heart. I never want to see this devastation in them again.
“What would make you feel better, angel?”
“You know the answer to that question,” she whispers back, looking away from me.
I wish she’d stop asking me to let her go. It’s never going to happen.
“Other than that,” I reply, my voice still husky from my simmering arousal.
“I want to talk to Rhia… please,” she says so quietly I have to strain to hear her. “I miss her.” Tears start running down her cheeks, and I swallow hard seeing her so distraught.
I want to give her the world, yet she asks for the few things she can’t have.
It’s hardly surprising Ella wants her friend. Those two are close, and Rhia has been Ella’s sole support for years. I want to be that for her now. I want her to come to me to find solace. And we will get there.
“She has to wonder why I haven’t talked to her. We always talk,” she whispers, her expression earnest and raw.
Uberto found that out when he went through Ella’s phone history for the past year. The longest the two friends have gone without talking to each other on the phone was five days, and that was because they were spending that time together.
Ella hasn’t talked to her friend for ten days, and it can’t be easy for her. Rhia, on the other hand, believes Ella has been in touch.
Uberto recorded Ella’s voice and integrated it into a software program he created. He’s also assigned a specialist in his team who’s been studying Ella’s manner of writing and speaking to monitoring all of Ella’s communications and act as her. “Ella” has thus left voice messages for her friend, but they were timed to when we knew she couldn’t answer the phone. In turn, Rhia has left messages for Ella and to her it seems they’re playing phone tag. So far, Rhia doesn’t suspect anything.
Keeping them apart is necessary. I considered bringing Rhia here to make Ella smile again, but soon dismissed the idea. It would be more trouble than it’s worth.
Rhianna Bannaghan is too embedded with her business in Dublin to steal her away. My plan is to keep her so occupied she has little time to think about anything else. So far, so good.
She’s won the proposal to revamp the PR campaign for Anthony Mahome’s boutique hotels and will be on his books for as long as I say. He owes me, but in this case, it’s a win-win. By all accounts, Miss Bannaghan is brilliant at what she does.
