Chapter 25

Jade

Just the sound of his approaching footsteps made cold sweat slide down my spine.

I was in a seated wide angle straddle pose when he eventually emerged and casually flicked that stormy gaze of his in my direction.

Almost choking on my inhale, I immediately closed my parted legs and opened my mouth to greet him a good morning, but he turned on his heel and walked away towards the kitchen in the next second, giving me a view of his broad back clad in another perfectly tailored black suit.

I swallowed back the words then watched from my defeated perch on the ground as Hazel cheerily greeted him and he murmured back a response before accepting a mug of coffee from her.

He wasn’t friendly, but he wasn’t completely cold either. And his current expression wasn’t the stony one he had directed my way.

Just neutral. Impassive.

Well, I guess I could understand that on some level since Hazel hadn’t puked in his car or come all over his sheets.

Speaking of sheets…

I hopped to my feet and raced back upstairs towards his room, praying he hadn’t locked it.

He hadn’t, but his bed now had new pink sheets, the old ones not in the laundry basket or anywhere else I looked.

Great. He had probably gone to burn them in the middle of the night.

I groaned then facepalmed myself.

God, could I make his aversion towards me any worse?

Mumbling under my breath about the unfairness of life, I turned to leave, but pulled to a hard stop when I realized Julian had come into the room and was now standing about three feet away in front of me.

“J-Julian. Hi.” I rubbed my suddenly sweaty palms down my shorts. “I hope you had a splendid night’s res—”

He took a single step into my personal space and the move was effective in abruptly shutting me up.

His gray eyes glinted down at me, flinty and intimidating. “This is the last time you’ll step foot in this room or touch any of my things,” he said coldly, his tone sharp and powerful with a hint of contempt. “Could you be any more embarrassing? Trying to seduce me to get my attention. Is that the new low you’ve stooped to?”

I clenched my teeth hard against a wave of pathetic emotion as I lowered my gaze. “That—that isn’t…”

“I really am not interested in hearing your excuses. The only thing I’ve asked of you is to stay out of my way. Why the fuck is that so hard for you to do?”

“I wanted to apologize for throwing up in your car,” I said shakily, still not bringing myself to look at him or the floodgates would burst open. “I didn’t know you were going to… I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

I made a mistake—or mistakes. But couldn’t he hear how sincere and regretful I sounded?

Didn’t that move him the tiniest bit?

I ran past him before he could tell me to get out himself, tears already slipping down my cheeks.

I was disgusted with myself and how fragile my feelings were. But I couldn’t control them; not when the person hurting those feelings was someone I’d loved for most of my life.

And I couldn’t even completely blame him this time around so all I did was cry harder, curling up on my bed until I heard the front door open and close, signaling he was out of the house.

When I finally calmed down, I thought about what I could do to earn his forgiveness and get him to start paying attention to me the way I wanted.

Ideas flitted through my mind but I discarded every one of them until I couldn’t ignore the obvious answer any longer.

I needed to do what he had asked—stay out of his way.

I was trying too hard and it was only making him dislike me more.

Maybe, just maybe if I stopped caring so much, he would start seeing me in a different light and deem me worthy enough of his love and affection.

A girl could only hope.