Between Commitment and Betrayal (Hardy Billionaire Brothers, #1)(97)

She stopped and turned to me, her eyes full of blue fury, her body vibrating with a tension I’d never seen from her. “You think I give a shit about a rough-and-tumble? I enjoy it. I enjoy knowing I can hold my own in the ring, that there are people out there I trust enough to step in it with me. And as for you and me, it means I fucking loved screwing around with you.” She closed her eyes like she was in pain before opening them again. “But we won’t have that anymore, just like we won’t have anything anymore. So I’ll have to find it with someone else now.”

Didn’t she understand we couldn’t move on from one another that easily?

I don’t know if she meant to taunt me, to remind me that another man could have her—that another man would have her if I didn’t figure out the will—but it drove me insane. I was already wound tight enough to snap, but it happened to be her that snipped the small thread holding me together.

“What the hell did you just say?” I growled as I stepped toward her.

She didn’t back up. She pointed her finger at me in fury. “You aren’t the man I’ll do it with anymore, but you can bet your ass that I will do it with someone else once I’m out of here.” Then she spun around and went to the computer on my desk. She typed with purpose and then my printer jolted to life. Before my eyes, her letter of resignation appeared. “Here’s your written notice. One month.”

When I didn’t take it right away, she shoved it into my chest and then grabbed my wrist to slam it there too. She was walking out the door before I realized I was losing her. I was losing everything I wanted.

I grabbed her elbow and tapped my watch before swiping it over the FOB area next to the door. With a click of a button, I shut down the room’s cameras and locked the door. Then I spun her to face me. “You’re not done with me.”

“Aren’t I?” She lifted a brow.

Everly wanted a fight. I felt it. She’d embraced her anger and was ready to throw it at me like a fucking fireball. “You don’t get to be done with me for at least another month.” I slammed the contract down on the desk and then shoved her in front of it. “See, you just typed out one month.”

“Working for you means nothing.”

“It means everything because I can’t live without you. I’m so far in love with you that I can’t see straight. You know I go to bed touching this?” I held up my hand and pointed to the string on my ring finger. “And I wake up, still touching it like it can bring me closer to you. I’ve suffered days with seeing the hurt in your eyes and wanting to make it better, with seeing you pulling away, and wanting to pull you back. I. Love. You.” I ground out.

She stood in front of me, her eyes wide with shock first but I saw how her whole body clenched up with my last declaration. “You can’t fucking say that to me,” she whispered, her teeth clenched together like she was trying to hold onto her anger. After another blink, she bellowed, “You don’t get to say that to me!”

She flew up to me, holding nothing back and I felt her emotion unleash in the room, like her heart was shattering as she pounded her fists into my chest furiously. I let her, let her get her hate for me out because I wanted to feel her pain too.

I deserved it.

Then, I pulled her close, hungry for the scent of her coconut shampoo and the feel of her body close to me. “I fucking love you, Raindrop. I do.”

“Well, you can’t. You literally can’t after what you’ve done. You’ve left me for someone else.” She shook her head back and forth, her chin trembling. “I can’t love you now.”

“You don’t mean that,” I shot back. She couldn’t get over me that quickly even if she believed that I was catering to Anastasia, that I was trying to do something more with her. Right? My heart lurched at the thought.

I was appeasing Anastasia by being seen with her only to confirm that I would get the yoga studio, only to confirm Anastasia and her mother would let me buy it out. We’d discussed it over dinners, gone round and round about what they wanted. It was a shit show I knew was going to happen.

I knew Everly would believe it too, knew I’d be slicing at her spirit with a blunt knife.

It wasn’t at all true. I hadn’t even contemplated it. I’d never have a baby with anyone except the woman I loved. Yet, this was the only way to get her mother’s studio, to make sure she wouldn’t intervene, to make it all right even if it felt wrong for a moment.

I needed her to keep her distance for now but I’d lost control. Lost my sanity in that moment. And even still, the sanity was slipping again as she shrugged like I didn’t mean a thing to her.

So I acted out. I stepped forward and yanked them straight down her legs to prove a point. She gasped when I ripped her panties from her too.

Then I shoved her toward the desk and she went, bending over it willingly but she threw out words of hate too. “I might want you to fuck me, Declan. I might need some closure, but I’m still not yours, and we’re still done.”

“No,” I announced loud with conviction. I pointed to the notice she’d given me on the table. “You just typed out I own you for one month until you leave. Reread whatever you wrote, Everly. If you want, I’ll have our divorce papers delivered too. Better yet, here’s my phone.” I threw it on the desk in front of her. “Call the lawyer if you want.”