chapter 13

I waited for him to tell me he regretted it. I held my breath and waited for the moment he would say that he wishes he had never done it and the moment he would pull away. I braced myself for it and I turned to the side so I wouldn’t have to see his face when he said those words.

I felt him stand up from the bed and I expected to hear his clothes and then the bedroom door but to my surprise, it was the bathroom door that l’heard. I looked up immediately because I wanted to be sure I had heard correctly and that was when I saw him return with a bowl of water and a washcloth in his hands.

I was staring at him in complete shock but that didn’t deter him from resting between my legs and wiping me down with the warm water. I was too stunned to speak so I just watched as he carefully cleaned me and once he was done, he picked up the littered clothes from the floor and folded them carefully on the edge of the bed.

“What are you doing?” I couldn’t help but ask after a few minutes of watching him go around the room like he owned it- he did but that wasn’t the point.

The last time we had sex, it was like he couldn’t be bothered and wanted to leave the room as soon as possible but now he was acting like concerned husband and I couldn’t connect those two parts of him. It felt like I was dealing with two contrasting personalities and I didn’t know which was his.

“What do you mean?” he asked almost confused and I carefully stood from the bed.

I noticed the way his eyes were roaming my body so I wrapped the blanket around myself and I made my way over to him and took the clothes right out of his hands. He watched me carefully and once I had placed my clothes in the appropriate places, I turned to him. He was watching me and I knew for a fact that since the moment I stood up, his eyes hadn’t left me.

I ignored the way my lower belly clenched as I thought about that and I made my way over to the door. I kept my hand on the door knob but refrained from opening it in case someone was walking past. The last thing I wanted was for someone to get an eyeful of Jaxon naked.

“I think you should leave,” I began slowly and just like that, his entire body shut down.

His expression faded to neutral and he gazed at me with an unreadable look in his eyes. Once he saw that I was serious, he nodded and picked up his clothes. He started putting them on and I noticed he was doing it a little slower than usual. Maybe he was expecting me to change my mind, maybe I would have changed my mind but I knew that I needed to keep my distance from Jaxon.

I gave him the ammunition to break my heart once and I wasn’t going to do that again. I had learnt against my

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Chapter 13

better judgment that mates weren’t always going to protect you, I believed that once and I was not going to make that same mistake again. Jaxon was not my savior and just because he was kind to Kiara did not mean he would be the same to me.

Once he was dressed, he walked over to the door and I pulled it open. He hesitated by the door way and turned to me. It took everything in me not to look away and avoid his gaze. Instead, I stared him deep in his eyes hoping that he didn’t see how anxious and unsure I was. All it would have taken for me to let him stay was one word and I hated that I was so weak to him despite everything that had happened.

“You don’t trust me yet,” he began slowly. “It doesn’t matter; I will win that trust back.”

“Trust is a difficult thing to earn,” I told him and he gave me a wry smile that I knew held a lot of promises.

“I have always loved challenges.”

Before I could say anything else, he had walked out of the room without looking back. I stood there by the entrance for a good five minutes just staring at the path he had gone through wondering what the hell had just happened and what the hell I had just gotten myself into with Jaxon.

For the rest of the day I avoided him. I knew it was childish but I did because for once, I was out of my element and I hated it.

When I left, one thing I prided myself on was my ability to control the surroundings. Kiara was a wrench in my plan but even with her, I learnt to be able to predict things and control the outcome. With Jaxon, it was a totally different ball game. It felt like swimming in open sea–without a life vest or any form of preotection.

Jaxon was a raging sea with dangerous waves and I knew if I wasn’t careful, I was going to get swept away by the tide so I avoided him. If I knew he was in the dining room, I would stay in my room. I refused to have lunch with him and Kiara even though he called for me. When I went to Kiara’s room and I saw him there, I walked right out of the room without another word.

He knew I was avoiding him and if anything, he found it amusing. I would see a small smile playing on his l*ps. whenever I avoided him or left a room simply because he was there. He found the entire thing amusing and the fact that he hadn’t done anything about it led me to believe that I had gotten away with it.

By evening, I went out for dinner and I was shocked to see that he wasn’t at the table. It was just Kiara and 1 and 1 was so confused by his absence that I found myself staring at his empty chair for the entirety of our dinner. It got so bad that Klara noticed.

“Daddy isn’t here she said to me. “He asked me to tell you that he was busy.”

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Chapter 13

I ignored the fact that he probably banked on the fact that I would notice his absence and look for him. After that, I refused to even glance at his chair even though it never left my mind.

Once we were done eating, I took to her room and helped her clean up and get ready for the night. I read her a bedtime story and once she was asleep, I tucked her into bed and kissed her forehead. Once again, I thought about Jaxon and why he wasn’t there to kiss her goodnight.

Even though I read her the stories, he would always appear at the end to kiss her goodnight but he didn’t and Kiara didn’t even say anything about it. That led me to believe that they had a conversation about it before where he probably already told her that he was going to be busy. I suddenly wanted to know the details of that conversation but I didn’t know how to ask and I wasn’t going to wake Kiara just to ask her about her father.

I forced myself to leave the room but I had more questions than I did answers. Maids and guards walked past me, bowing their heads as they went and the further I went from Kiara’s room, the more curious I became and soon my curiosity clouded my sense of judgment and I found myself going down a hallway I hadn’t gone down in four

years.

I got to Jaxon’s office and I knocked. He didn’t respond but I pushed the door open and there he was sitting on his chair. As I took it in, I realized that the last time, I didn’t get the chance to actually look at his office. I heard the conversation from outside and I never guessed how spacious his office actually was. It was like three times the size of my old apartment with four bookshelves, two sofas and a massive table and chair for him to use.

When he saw me, I saw the hint of a smile grow on his l*ps but it was gone

so fast that I almost thought I imagined it. He cleared his throat and closed the document in front of him. If I didn’t know any better I would. have guessed that he wasn’t expecting me but judging by the glint in his eyes, he wanted me here.

It was obvious that he planned all of this for me to just arrive at his office and I mentally face palmed at how easy it was for meito fall into his trap

“Please,” he began slowly. “Sit down.”

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