Do You Want To Know How You Felt?

I looked from Alexander to Richard. 

“Alexander Hayes," I answered Richard. 

Richard shook his head. “No, he’s–” He cut himself off as his eyes widened again. He turned to Alexander with that look, his mouth opening and closing. “You… It can’t–”

"Since you’re here, I assume you’ve signed the papers,” Alexander said, his voice low, yet it carried. One look at Richard, and he clamped his mouth shut. 

“He was just about to,” my father spoke for the first time in a while. He turned to Richard with a glare. “Sign them.”

Richard looked at me, his eyes soft, but I kept my back straight and my eyes hard, even though I was falling apart. 

He finally brought out a pen, and he didn’t look at me as he signed the papers. He let them drop to the ground, and the wind was cruel enough to blow them to my feet. I stared down at the papers, fighting back tears. 

“Good,” my father said, his voice like ice. “Now get out.”

I didn’t look at him as he left. I just looked at the papers. So that was it. After three years of an unhappy marriage and a lifetime of loving him, this was the end. 

“We will carry out the marriage immediately.” 

My head snapped up to Alexander, my eyes wide. “What?”

He ignored me as if I hadn't spoken, talking to my father. “It will only be a court wedding. None of that white wedding.”

“Hey!” I yelled, and he froze. Even my father froze. Alexander finally turned to me, an eyebrow raised. “I’m the one you’re getting married to, not my father. So if you’re done acting like I don't exist, let’s discuss.”

He stared at me with his hands in his pockets, an unreadable expression on his face. “And what do you want us to discuss, beautiful?”

That caught me off guard, and I blinked at him like an idiot. I wasn’t expecting him to call me beautiful.  

“W-what?”

“You wanted us to involve you in our discussion,” he said as he walked to me, and I fought the urge to stay still, to look him in the eye. “So this is me involving you. What do you want to discuss? You want a big wedding? With a long, expensive dress and flowers? You want to invite the whole country? Let them know you’re remarrying so soon? Is that it, Isabella?”

He was now standing so close to me, his scent once again filling my nose like it was its right. He smelt spicy, tempting, like musk and leather. 

“No,” I answered, my voice hard with bitterness. “I don’t want to advertise to the world that I’m getting married barely a week after I got divorced.”

He took a step closer, and there was barely any space left between us. 

My father was here. His security was here. And some of the househelps were poking their heads out of the window, trying to see what the tension was about, but Alexander Hayes didn’t care about all this. No, he didn’t care at all, because he took another step closer and now he was pressed to me, body to body, my chest so close to his. He was so close that I could feel his heartbeat, and I was shocked because I thought that since he was a cold bastard, his heartbeat would be slow. 

I was wrong. It was fast and chaotic. 

His eyes trailed from my face to my neck and stayed there. A smirk twisted his lips, and I didn't need a mirror to know what he was smirking about; the mark he left. 

“Then what do you want, beautiful?” he asked softly as his eyes trailed back to my face. 

“Do you care about what I want, Alexander Hayes?”

His eyes went back to my neck and stayed there. “Not in the slightest.”

I scoffed, and he looked back at my eyes. “Of course.”

“Now that that’s established, shall we go back to discussing our wedding plans?”

“With all haste, sir,” I answered through my teeth. 

He turned away from me. “Good.”

He walked to my father, and they both made their way into the house, my father throwing a hard look behind his shoulder. 

I went to the garden instead of going in. 

I couldn’t stand that bastard’s face and the look in my father’s eyes. 

***

I didn't know how long I was in the garden. I was so immersed in the book I was reading that I lost track of time. When I looked up from my book after hours, the sun had already set, casting a golden glow down.

I felt eyes burning into the back of my neck, and when I turned back, I screamed, jumping to my feet. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I screamed, pressing my hand to my chest as if that would calm my heartbeat. 

“Since when did you curse?” he asked calmly, like he almost hadn't given me a heart attack, moving to the seat opposite mine and sitting. 

“Don’t talk like you know me,” I snarled at me. 

“You’re right,” he said, crossing his legs. “I don’t. Tell me then.”

“I don’t want to,” I answered as I picked up my book and turned to leave. 

“I liked you better when you were drunk.”

I stopped walking and turned to him with my eyes hard. “Why? Because I was easy to deceive?”

“Yes,” he answered with his expression totally indifferent. 

“You’re a prick,” I spat. 

I noticed it, the slightest shift. His jaw clenched, but he relaxed it quickly. “You’ll love my father then.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “Why will I?”

Instead of answering, he stared at me, his eyes trailing over me, leaving heat in their wake. 

“You moaned so beautifully that night,” he said, his voice rough at the edge. 

My cheeks burned, and I looked away from him. 

”I don’t want to hear anything about that night.”

“No? Why? Because you don’t want to admit that was the best sex you’ve ever had?”

“What do you know?”

“Enough.”

We stared at each other, my chest heaving, my body burning. 

“Do you want to know how you felt that night, Isabella?”