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“Amelia, let’s go home. We will take the weekend to talk everything over and make a plan for the wedding. Just come home.”
“No. I can’t.”
“You can. Every night can be like last night. We can get married, and everything will settle down. Just come home with me.”
Everything else would settle. That was what he chose to say. Everything else would settle. What he meant was I would be trapped. The business deal would be done, and I would be trapped in a gilded cage for the rest of my life.
That wasn’t living. “Leave me alone.”
CHAPTER 33
LUC
“Don’t let her know you are there unless she tries to leave. I’m on my way,” I yelled into the phone before throwing it in the passenger seat.
The agent had found her and followed her to a sculpture park. I had broken every traffic law on the way there. It didn’t matter.
It took far too long to reach her.
The traffic was terrible.
It should have only taken me a little over an hour to get there, or maybe a little under an hour, since I was more than prepared to ignore the speed limit. Instead, it was two hours of pure panic trying to get to Amelia before she left and was gone forever. Somehow, I knew that if she was gone before I got to that park, that was it. This was going to be my last chance to convince her I was worth her time and attention.
Those two hours driving on I-95 gave me time to reflect, not only on every time I’d scared or intimidated her, but also on the filthy things I’d said to her.
Yes, at first I’d assumed she was more experienced than she was, but that didn’t matter. Whether I’d been the first man to touch her or not, I should have treated her with more respect.
Even if that could be excused, what the fuck was my excuse after I took her virginity the night of the opera? After that, I had known how innocent she was. Still, I’d pushed, and I’d punished her for her mother’s indiscretions and for my mistakes.
The filthy things I’d whispered in her ear, how I’d touched her, how I’d made her touch me.
My stomach tightened with shame.
I should have been gentle. I should have guided her, taught her the art of making love, or at least helped her discover what she liked.
Instead, I had taken her, bent her body to my will, and used her.
The fact that I’d made her come for me over and over didn’t help. I hadn’t done that to give her pleasure. I’d done it to make her cunt grip my cock tighter and to make sure she knew I was the only one who could make her feel that way. It was just another way to exert my power and control over her.
Fuck, no wonder she’d run. I hadn’t given her any other options.
I had thought I’d started to make up for that with the way we’d been in front of the fire. That had been a classic romantic moment not fueled by anger, rage, or even lust. That had been the only time we’d been together that was about more than my control.
It wasn’t enough. It didn’t matter that she’d matched me touch for touch. She’d still been following my lead, been the perfect little submissive girl. She deserved better.
My fists trembled as I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, heat flushing my face. More than once, I considered pulling over as my stomach rolled in disgust at my own actions.
There wasn’t time. I needed to reach her. I needed to make this right. Even the idea of having to live my life without her made a cold sweat break out over my skin as I screamed at the car in front of me for being stuck behind the same traffic accident.
“Fucking move!” I screamed again as we inched up another few feet and stopped. The driver in the car I yelled at flipped me off and the people in the car next to mine were staring.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” I snarled at them. It wasn’t their fault I was behaving like a monster. It wasn’t even the fault of the person in front of me. He was stuck in the same never-ending traffic jam I was.
This was my fault. All of it. Amelia leaving, my father still in control of my business and my empire. Everything was on me, and I was losing my fucking mind, banging on the steering wheel, yelling obscenities that would make even the vilest of sailors stand up and slow clap.
Self-control was something I thought I had, but apparently not when it came to her. Amelia Mae Astrid was my new favorite vice, the one thing that would make me lose my composure and my goddamned mind. Years spent perfecting the art of never letting my emotions show, never exposing my weakness to anyone, and here I was heading to New fucking Jersey in a panic. I was raging like a lunatic because I’d fucked up with the one person who didn’t deserve my wrath.
By the time I was speeding through East Brunswick, I realized it didn’t matter if I wanted her, not really, because I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t deserve her, and she certainly didn’t deserve to be shackled to me. She deserved someone who always treated her with love and respect.
