All Chapters of Don’t Make Me Love You: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

41 Chapters

BLINDSIDED

Adrian’s POVI drove urgently to the location where I was meeting Jim. It was one of Gary’s properties that I had managed to take. The familiar scent and air around the small but luxurious duplex hit me as soon as I got out of the car, my memories vivid as I recalled the last time Gary and I had visited the small building. At that time, it was still at the stage of the final finishes and touches, and Gary had teased me about having it as a gift anytime I decided to finally get married. I remembered laughing it off because there was no way I would be thinking about a wife with everything that had happened to me.I shut the car door, tapping my pocket to make sure my phone was with me. Before I could walk up the staircase, Jim was already standing at the building entrance. He had probably seen me from the CCTV cameras mounted in secret spots all around the property.“Boss,” he greeted.“I told you to stop calling me that,” I said through my teeth.“Sorry, sir,” he said, leading the way t

OFFICIALLY MINE

Damian’s POVShe stood there watching me, her eyes clouded with an anxious fear I couldn't quite break through. When I tried to take her hand to calm her, she pushed it away, taking a few steps back. The distance hurt me. After five years of missing her, any moment where I couldn't protect her felt like a failure.“Kath..” I called softly.“Can you start explaining already, please?" she said, staring into my eyes as she waved the document in my face. “What is this about?”“Hey..” I walked closer to her gently, and thankfully she didn't move away this time. I held her by her shoulders, guiding her to sit on the edge of the bed. “Relax, babe. I will tell you everything.”“Babe?” she raised her brow. She was clearly running out of patience, and I could see it clearly.“I had to make the changes because of Adrian.”She flinched softly, but not softly enough for me to miss it. And it had me wondering if something was wrong, or if something had happened to her.“What about Adrian?” she brea

IN MY MIND

Lily’s POV Charles had a cast on his leg, and seeing it in person hurt more than I expected. He'd taken the hit on my behalf and ended up like this because of Adrian. My fingers curled into a fist. I tried to reach for his hand when Damian rushed past me, smelling of freshly applied cologne. He was hurrying somewhere he hadn't told me about. I watched him move urgently down the stairs, almost brushing past Charles and me without acknowledging either of us. I tried to call out to him, but he stopped midway before I could even get the words out. “Babe,” he said urgently, reaching out to peck my cheek. “I'll be back shortly.” “Is everything okay?” “Yes, everything's fine. I just need to get to the company right away,” he said, walking off after throwing a pointed glance at Charles. I licked my lower lip and sighed. I'd wanted to ask him about the Zippo he'd been carrying for a while now. For some reason, I still couldn't shake the man from the hospital, or that lighter. “Charles?”

WHAT I CAN’T UNDO

Adrian’s POV I sat at my desk, staring at the same paragraph in the same report for longer than I wanted to admit. My mind kept drifting back to that morning days ago that had refused to leave my head no matter how much I wanted it to. For some reason, it had become too vivid like it had happened just yesterday. I still remembered the crash, the way she’d looked lying still in the back seat, the fear that had gripped me before I even knew if she was breathing. Then the hours after, her hands pulling me down onto her, her voice begging me to hold her like she needed it more than air. I hadn’t touched anyone the way I touched her that night in a long time. Maybe ever. A knock came at the door, pulling me out of it. Lily walked in with a folder pressed to her chest, her expression already guarded before she’d even said a word. “The updated sales figures,” she said, setting the folder on my desk. “You asked for them before the board call.” “Thank you.” I took it, but I didn’t open it

WHAT IS LEFT OF ME

Adrian’s POVI had left the company not long after the media room incident. I had gone back to my office, picked up my things, and walked out without saying much to anyone. I didn't want to see another reporter, another employee, or anyone who might ask me what was happening. I had spent the entire afternoon trying to keep everything under control, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was losing my grip on all of it.By the time I got to the lounge, I had already decided I didn't want to think about the company, Damian, or Lily.But that lasted about five minutes.The lounge was quiet enough that I could hear the ice shifting in my glass every time I picked it up. I'd been sitting at the same corner table for almost two hours now, the bartender refilling my drink without asking questions, the way he always did whenever I came in looking like this.Everything was coming undone right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do about any of it.I thought about Damian

LEVERAGE

Lily’s POVThree Months Later…Damian hadn't spoken to me since Adrian's sudden, unwelcome visit to my house long weeks ago. For a whole three months, he'd been sleeping wherever the day left him, his office more often than not, and if that told me anything, it told me what I'd done was unforgivable. I had hurt him beyond repair, if I was honest with myself. Somehow he had figured out that I had said yes to him in the first place because I was trying to get over my feelings for Adrian, and what hurt him even more, what left him disappointed in me, was that of all men, I hadn't just fallen for Adrian Hastings, my father's much older ex-best friend, I'd also had his thick cock deep inside me, more than once, and enjoyed every fucking second of it.It was Monday, and I'd just arrived at Adrian Atelier. I turned quickly the moment I spotted Adrian heading out through the hallway that led to the lobby. Avoiding him these past months had never been easy. For a full month he'd worked from ho

NEVER ENOUGH

Damian’s POVFlashback…I had stopped believing that someone would come for me.It hadn't always been that way. When I first came to the orphanage, I used to get excited whenever a car pulled into the compound. I would run to the window with the other children and try to see who was inside. Sometimes it was a family coming to meet the children, and whenever that happened, I would spend the whole morning wondering if they would choose me.I always made sure I looked my best.The matrons would tell us to behave ourselves whenever visitors came, so I tried. I kept my hands in my lap, answered their questions politely, and smiled whenever they spoke to me. If they asked whether I liked school, I said yes. If they asked whether I liked helping around the orphanage, I said yes to that too.I thought maybe there was something I had to do to make them want me.But they never did.One by one, the children around me left.I watched them pack their little bags while the matrons helped them fold

HELD CAPTIVE

Lily’s POV"Impossible!" He thundered, his eyes shooting daggers at me. "I will never let this happen, Lily."I stood from my seat and paced around the office, trying to get some air into my lungs. It was true that I was enjoying his reaction more than I probably should have, but him outright telling me it was impossible to give my father's own family what they deserved had started to genuinely piss me off. He didn't even know what he was saying no to. He didn't know whose blood ran through the person sitting across from him, negotiating on behalf of the very man he'd wronged."Adrian, did you just say it's impossible to give him what he wants?" I asked, turning to face him fully. He was fuming, his chest rising and falling like he'd just run somewhere. "You talk like you don't know business anymore," I said, and that clearly landed under his skin."Lily, you don't get to tell me how to react to being handed complete nonsense." He yelled, his voice bouncing off the glass walls of his o

EXPOSED

Lily’s POVI shut the door to Adrian's office and let out a breath of relief I hadn't realized I'd been holding in for so long. A small, satisfied smile tugged at the corners of my lips as I tucked my hair behind my ears. The satisfaction I felt from what had just happened was still fresh, and I was feeling every bit of it. If I'd known it would feel this good, I would have moved on with my plans much sooner, regardless of whatever feelings I might have been carrying for him.If only I'd known. I wouldn't have waited this long. But maybe there was a reason things had taken this much time to line up the way they finally had. My heels clicked softly against the floor as I walked down the hallway, running into Ellyn. She had been a little too present around me lately, enough to seem suspicious if she was somehow connected to Adrian in a way beyond work. But as far as I knew, their relationship had always stayed professional. So for now, she seemed clean in my eyes.The files in her hands

WHAT HE WARNED ME ABOUT

Adrian’s POVThe drive home felt longer than it should have, my mind circling back again and again to the way Lily had acted in my office earlier that day. Something about her had felt off, though I couldn't put a name to it. She'd been too composed in the moments that should have rattled anyone else, calm in a way that felt almost rehearsed, and then oddly reactive in places that made no real sense given everything else. She'd handed me a way out of losing the farmland and then, within the same conversation, seemed to take some quiet satisfaction in watching me squirm over the price of it. I couldn't explain the shift between the two. I only knew it sat wrong with me, the way a wrong note sits wrong in a song you've heard a hundred times before and know by heart.I told myself I was overthinking it. That stress could make anyone act strange, and Lily had more than her fair share of it lately, working under a boss whose company was bleeding money in public, whose name kept surfacing n

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