บททั้งหมดของ It Kills Me: A Forbidden Dark Romance: บทที่ 211 - บทที่ 220

A tap on the window woke me up.My eyes opened, and I saw Axel right next to me. With a groan, I hit the button and unlocked the door.Axel hit the ignition button and turned off the car. “Nice parking job.”“Fuck you.”“Can you walk?”“Fuck you.”“You said that already.” He grabbed me by the arm and helped me out of the Range Rover. The sky had lightened, but daylight hadn’t broken yet. He walked with me to the passenger seat of his car and opened the door. “Let me repark your car, and we’ll be on our way.” He shut the door once I was in the seat and then parked my Range Rover on the street instead of on top of the sidewalk. I’d get a ticket for leaving my vehicle there, but at least it wouldn’t get towed like it would if I’d left it how it had been.When Axel got into the driver’s seat, I was jerked awake. It made me wonder if I’d imagined him parking the car. Did I dream that, or did he park the car and then I fell asleep for two seconds before I was woken up again?Fuck, I was sma

Several new paintings entered our inventory, and it was up to me to decide where they would be hung. We had different galleries by genre and time period, and if a painting wasn’t purchased within sixty days, it was rotated farther toward the back of the gallery. If it continued not to be sold, it ended up in storage until we had a shortage. Or if it was just a strange but respectable painting, it ended up in the basement where it would never see the light of day.Until someone like Theo showed up.The owner of the gallery rarely came by. When he’d first hired me, he was around a lot, but once he realized I could handle all the responsibilities without a hiccup, he promoted me to the manager position. There was one other girl here, and she was around mainly on the weekends so I could have that time off.When no clients were in the gallery, it was just me, alone under the lights, surrounded by history. By loves lost at sea. By victors who got to write their histories. By flowers that bl

I waited for him to say more, knowing it was coming.His eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “If I hurt you more than he ever has, then that means I mean more to you. It means that I’m the man you want, but you’re scared. So, you’re settling. And everything you said before is bullshit. You don’t need him to care for you or protect you. You’re perfectly capable of doing those things on your own. What the fuck happened to make you change your entire identity like this? Because the woman I met had a spine stronger than the knuckles in my fist. She held her head higher than a queen. She was a bad bitch who didn’t take shit—not even from me.” He cocked his head slightly. “What happened, Astrid?”I looked away.“Tell me.”I didn’t want to repeat the story. Couldn’t describe it without it playing out in my mind, without it provoking the feelings I tried to bury. “I’ve made my choice, Theo. And I mean it when I say I don’t ever want to see you again.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I just want to be with you, Astrid. And I want to prove that I’m not anywhere I shouldn’t be when we aren’t together. You’ve made it clear you don’t trust me, so…”“I didn’t say that⁠—”“You did.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his anger was thinly veiled. “I probably wouldn’t stay in this marriage if you’d asked me that under different circumstances. But because of what I did, I suppose it’s reasonable.”“Do you want me to come with you so I trust you—or because you don’t trust me?” He’d never stopped by my gallery before. Not once since I’d worked there. He was usually busy with work or sleeping during the day after an assignment, so his life was different right now. But it was still unusual. It made me wonder if he didn’t believe the lie I’d told at dinner but didn’t have enough proof otherwise. Did he actually want me to come with him, or did he just want to make sure I was home alone? That I wasn’t running off to Theo the second he was gone?H

Her eyes were still down on her glass.“You don’t have to stay, Astrid.” I nodded toward the door. “Go.”“She’s fine,” Bolton said. “You don’t need to speak for her.”My eyes flicked back to his. “Neither do you.”Astrid remained, caught in the crossfire between our smoking guns.Another stretch of silence passed. A heavy one. A standoff among all three of us.The waitress returned to take our orders. This was exactly the reason I didn’t do business at restaurants because food and work didn’t mingle. Only booze did. “I’ll take the Caesar,” I said, assuming it was on the menu.It was the first time Astrid spoke. “I’ll have the same.”“I’ll take the steak—medium.”The table was silent again, the three of us locked in a wordless battle. Bolton had his eyes locked on me, as if to make sure I didn’t look at Astrid right across from me. It was a test he wanted me to fail.Astrid wouldn’t leave, so there was nothing I could do to spare her the torture. “Are we doing this or not?”“Are we?” h