All Chapters of End the Stupid Bet, Win My Stage: Chapter 211 - Chapter 220

*LORENZO*Shit. Maybe that’s the reason.“Look, I can’t keep you here if you want to leave. Magda is moving to Canada. So where you’ll go, I don’t know. If nothing else, stay until you know where. But please don’t go. Stay. With me.”She can’t run...she can’t.Forgive me! Please.I hold my breath. Waiting.It’s excruciating. I’m the defendant in the dock waiting for the verdict. She turns her tearstained face to me.“You are not ashamed of me?”Ashamed? No!I can bear it no longer. I skim the back of my index finger across her cheek, capturing a tear. “No. No. Of course not. I...I...I’ve fallen in love with you.”Her lips part, and I hear her just audible gasp.Shit. Am I too late?Her eyes glisten with fresh tears, and my heart clenches with a new and intimidating sensation. Perhaps she’ll reject me. My anxiety level ratch

*LORENZO*I watch, enthralled, as Danica plays the “Raindrop” Prelude. With her eyes closed, she’s lost in the music, her face expressing every thought and feeling that Chopin evokes in the piece.Her hair flows down her back, glinting like a raven’s wing in the light of the winter sun that streams through the window. She’s captivating. Even in that football shirt.The notes swell and fill the room...and my heart. She loves me.She said so.I’ll have to get to the bottom of why she thought she’d be better off leaving. But for the moment I’ll listen and watch her play. Hearing a muffled cough from outside the room, I look up.Mona and Jessie are poised on the threshold, listening. I wave them in....I want to show Danica off.This is what my girl can do.They tiptoe into the room and stand watching Danica with the same look of amazement that I’m sure I had when I first heard her play. A

“I was hurt,” she says after an age.“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never want to hurt you. But where would you have gone?”“I don’t know.” She turns to face me. “I think it was...how do you say? Instinct. You know, Tomas and Julio...I’ve been running for so long. I was a little crazy.”“I can’t imagine how terrifying that was for you.” I cringe and close my eyes, thanking all the gods that I got to her in time. “But you can’t run every time we have a problem. Talk to me. Ask me questions. About anything. I’m here. I’ll listen. Argue with me. Shout at me. I’ll argue with you. I’ll shout at you. I’ll get it wrong. You’ll get it wrong. That’s all okay. But to resolve our differences, we have to communicate.”A fleeting look of anxiety crosses her face.“Hey.” I tilt her chin up and d

“Here, let me help you....” Taking hold of her hand, he plants a kiss in her palm. He moves it to his chest, and she splays it out against his skin, feeling his warmth. His lips part as he takes a sharp breath.“I like you touching me.”Encouraged, she moves her hand down, her fingers tickling the fine hair that’s sprinkled across his chest. She skims over one of his nipples, and it puckers under her touch.“Oh,” she breathes in delight.“Oh,” he responds, his voice hoarse, his eyes hooded and a dark, mossy green.He’s watching her like a hawk. She bites her upper lip, and he groans.“Don’t stop,” he whispers. Feeling more wanton and enjoying the fact that she’s turning him on, she moves her hand south over his smooth skin, over the bluffs and dips of his abdominal muscles.He tenses beneath her touch, and his breathing accelerates. She reaches the line of hair that

*LORENZO*Danica towel-dries her hair while I shave.The bruise on her side looks smaller, but it’s still a livid purple. A wave of guilt washes through me, she certainly gave me no indication last night or this morning that she was in any pain. She gives me a dazzling smile over her shoulder, and like a sea mist in the breeze, my guilt fades into the ether.Part of me wants to stay here with her forever. But I also need to leave.There was so much work for me to do in town and I didn’t want my father to notice.But it will be a shame to go. I’m enjoying our comfortable familiarity, and I marvel at the change in her. She seems far more confident, and it’s been only a few days.Tossing her hair to the side, with a glance at me, she strolls out of the bathroom, naked as the day she was born. I peek around the doorframe; the view is too tantalizing not to enjoy, her hair swinging almost to her waist in a gentle counterpoint to her w