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“Doesn’t matter.”
I turned to him, my eyebrow slightly raised.
“If that’s how you feel about her, then I don’t care about Liam. I don’t care about the consequences.”
I was shocked he’d said that. “Why?”
“Because I know exactly how it feels to love a woman.”
I arrived at Charlotte’s doorstep and rang the bell. Our relationship didn’t deserve this formality, but if I did it over the phone or through a text, she would just hunt me down until this conversation happened.
She opened the door, her eyes lighting up with joy. “Damien.” She immediately moved into my chest to kiss me.
I grabbed her by the arm and steadied her. “Char, we need to talk…”
Her happiness faded. “Okay…”
I didn’t even try to come inside. “It’s time we go our separate ways.” I didn’t sugarcoat or make excuses. I wanted her to understand that those midnight text messages wouldn’t make a difference, that showing up on my doorstep in nothing but lingerie wouldn’t entice me. The idea of kissing her made me sick to my stomach…now that I knew how I really felt. “I wanted to tell you in person so you would understand I’m serious.”
She was shocked for a couple seconds, probably because a man had never dumped her in her life. “Why?”
“It doesn’t matter why. I don’t want to see you anymore.” I felt like shit for bringing her around Annabella. I knew how it felt to see Annabella with Liam, and I did the same thing with Charlotte when I shouldn’t have.
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand, Charlotte. It’s over. Period.” I knew I was being harsh, unnecessarily cold, but Charlotte wouldn’t stop pursuing me until she got what she wanted. She played by her own rules, wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I pushed her away. “I wish you the best.”
Now she was speechless, her eyes slightly wet but also furious.
I lingered for another moment in case she wanted to say something, but when silence continued, I turned around and left.
I sat in front of the fire with the game on the TV. It was just me and a bottle of scotch for the evening, the one thing that had cured my loneliness for over a decade. I was in my sweatpants, with my cheek propped against my closed fist.
The bedroom door opened, and Hades stepped inside.
I glanced at him without turning my head. “Grab a glass.”
He was in jeans and a t-shirt, ditching his suit after he returned home from the office. He grabbed the decanter and filled his glass before he took a seat on the same couch as me, sitting at the opposite side. In silence, he watched the game with me.
These were the moments I’d missed the most when he’d left my life. The quiet evenings when we didn’t feel obligated to say anything. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, not when we were so close. We could watch the game and not mutter a word for hours.
Hades took a few drinks and held the glass on the armrest. “Why haven’t you told her?”
“I just broke it off with Charlotte.”
“Alright. Then why are you sitting here?”
I watched the TV with blank eyes, not reacting when a goal was scored. “I’m not exactly looking forward to the conversation.”
“Why? Every minute you wait is another minute she’s with Liam.” Now that he knew how I felt, all his loyalty to his client disappeared. He was on my side—one hundred percent.
“I don’t even know what to say to her.”
“Tell her what you told me.”
“And I barely confessed anything to you.” I’d never felt this way about anyone, and I only acknowledged it when it looked me straight in the face. “This isn’t me. I don’t do this kind of shit.”
“I didn’t either…until Sofia.”
“Well, I never thought I would be a pussy-whipped asshole.”
He chuckled. “It’s not so bad.”
I stared into my glass before I took a drink.
“Just do it, Damien. When you see her face, the words will come to you.”
Would they?
“She’ll leave him immediately. She’ll be in your bed before the sun sets. And everything else…doesn’t matter. Liam won’t be happy, but we can handle him. I’ll kill him if I have to. No problem.”
“I thought you were loyal to him?”
He nodded. “I am. But not nearly as loyal as I am to you.”
The solidity of our friendship meant the world to me. The moment he knew I was serious about Annabella, he was willing to move mountains to give me what I wanted.
“Sofia told me she’s in the ballroom tonight—for a wedding.”
I turned his way.
“It’s the perfect chance to get her alone…and end up in a hotel room.”
20
Annabella
Now that spring had arrived, I was in charge of booking weddings for the hotel. It was a romantic place to get married, and many generations of families had their events in that very ballroom. It’d been renovated many times, but the energy from the years of celebrations was cemented into the structure of the building.
