Crashing into Love by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Eighteen

Callie

“Should we take a walk through the park?” I murmur, clasping onto Conrad’s arm as we ride the elevator down to the ground floor from the restaurant.

He glances down at me, a fierce look in his eyes. He looked like he was going to leap across the table and maul me when I told him I might be ready tonight, but now there’s a feeling inside of me, as though my nerves are gathering up all my anxiety and throwing it at me in one giant ball.

There’s a message in Conrad’s glinting azures.

Are you trying to delay, woman?

But then he nods. “That sounds nice. Let’s do it.”

Perhaps he knows I need a little time to ready myself, to let my resolve catch up with my desire. Because I freaking want him bad, want to grind myself against him, bend over and look at him with come-get-me lust painted on my face, but what if I feel silly?

What if I make a fool of myself?

Conrad reaches down and takes my hand, and together we walk out onto the street, the city alight at this time of the evening. The sun has set and a deep red glow washes over the buildings, causing the windows to glisten, and sparkle, as Conrad leads us across the road and toward the park we passed on our way here.

“I love it here,” I murmur, looking around at the clean streets, the graffiti-less walls. “I’m so used to hurrying into my apartment, the streets full of drug dealers and criminals. But it also makes me feel a little guilty.”

He tilts his head down at me as he pushes the black metal gate open – revealing the park, with a long gravel path and fields on both sides, trees lining the edges, and a pond at the far end. “Guilty, why?”

“Because I didn’t earn any of this, I guess.”

He wraps his arm around me, squeezing me close to him. I can feel how tense and full of need he is, throbbing and ready to explode. It’s like there’s a whole world of animal desire inside of him he’s trying to hold back.

“You earned it the moment you crashed into me,” he teases, causing an uncontrollable smile to twitch my lips upward.

“I’m serious,” I say, my smile dropping, as our footsteps make crunching sounds on the path and the overhead lights shine down on us. “I don’t deserve any of this.”

“You deserve everything,” he snaps.

“Why?” I stop, staring up at him. “How can you possibly say that?”

“Because you’re you, Callie. That’s why.” He takes both my hands in his, holding onto me tightly, staring down with those moon-blue eyes of his. “I can’t explain it any deeper than that. Except that when I look at you, I feel like I never have before. I feel like… Fuck it, Callie. I’m done skirting around it. I’m done worrying about if it should be impossible. I—”

I love you.

Is that what he was going to say?

But then someone lets out an evil cackle from beside us, and we turn to find Alexis there, blonde-haired Alexis with her yoga leggings and her gym-honed body and her shiny fake-tanned skin, making me feel like the frumpiest girl in the universe.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She prances forward. “Did I interrupt?”

“For. Fuck’s. Sake.” Conrad lets my hands drop, clenching his fists and glaring at her. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I just wanted to see what you and this… um… thing were doing tonight.”

Conrad takes a step forward, his whole body heaving, his chest expanding like it’s going to tear his silver-colored suit to pieces. He looks like a man ready to throw down.

“Do not talk about my woman like that,” he growls. “Don’t even dream of it. You’re lucky you’re not a man.”

“How did you find us?” I snap, taking a step forward, unable to stop the outrage from thundering through me.

He was about to say it, the L-word, about to say it so I could say it back to him. And then we were going to kiss and collapse against each other, sinking deeply into our desire and love, going back home – home – and making love for the first time.

But this woman has ruined it.

“Well?” I hiss, stopping just short of her.

She titters, an insane glint in her eyes. There’s something truly unhinged about her. “Oh, I don’t know…”

Conrad walks up beside me, sighing grimly. “She put a tracker on my car, I’d wager. She’s done it before. She always finds a goddamn way. It’s driving me insane.”

My heart gives an urgent pulse at the aching note in Conrad’s voice, like he truly has had enough of this, like he can’t take it anymore.

“What are you hoping to achieve?” I hiss, turning back to Alexis. “What do you think is going to happen? Conrad doesn’t want you. He’s never wanted you.”

“He hasn’t even tried,” Alexis yells, her voice warbling like she’s about to burst into tears.

I fight back the pity which tries to rise up inside of me, remembering all the stress she’s caused Conrad, unfair and unearned.

“Has he ever given you any indication he wants to be with you?”

She folds her arms, reminding me of the girls in high school who’d always look down on me and Simone, acting like we were inferior because we didn’t have dyed hair and tanned skin and weren’t on the cheer squad. “He doesn’t need to. We’re meant to be together. It’s only a matter of time before he sees that.”

Conrad chuckles from beside me, as though he can’t believe that a minute ago we were embracing and now we’re dealing with this, with her.

“That’s just not true. And you know it’s not. I’m sorry, Alexis. I really am. I can see you’re a troubled woman. But I’m going to have to call the police and enforce the restraining order. I can’t have you following me, fucking tracking me. It’s simply unacceptable,” Conrad says completely fed up.

“Why couldn’t you just screw me?” she snaps, with a crazed note in her voice, causing me to take a step backward.

It’s like she’s going to produce a knife from somewhere and lunge at us any second. Even if this doesn’t make sense – she has nowhere she could even pull a weapon from – I can’t stop the fear from pounding in my chest.

I just want her gone, out of our lives.

“Because I was waiting for the one, my Callie,” he snarls, as he takes out his cell phone. “I’ve been waiting for her my whole damn life.”

“For her?” Alexis waves a hand at me.

For a second all the old feelings come rushing back, the insecurity I tried to suppress when the high school girls would make their cruel comments, the horrible self-hate which would hiss through me every time they aimed their cruel eyes at me.

But then Conrad steps forward and wraps his arm around me, hugging me close to him, letting Alexis see that he’s chosen me over her. Warmth replaces the coldness that had begun to seep into me, sparks igniting in my chest, telling me he picked me, he chose me, not her, despite her body and her hair and her everything.

My man wants me, and that’s all that matters.

“For her,” Conrad snarls firmly. “I do not want you, Alexis. I don’t want anything to do with you. It’s time you accepted that. I’ve found my woman and we’re going to start a family together.”

“But, but…” Alexis trails off, and then frantically waves a hand at me and then down herself. “You could have this. Do you know how fucking hard I work at the gym? Do you have any idea how little I eat? And all to keep myself fit for you, skinny for you, and instead you want this, this…”

She shakes her head, staring at me wide-eyed.

“I don’t understand.”

“My woman is a hundred times more attractive than you,” Conrad snaps, his hand squeezing supportively onto my shoulder. “She’s all I want, all I need, so fuck off for all I care but I’m calling the police.”

I glare at her, bolstered by Conrad’s words. I’ve never had anyone stand up for me like that before, and now Conrad has done it twice in the span of a few days, first with Todd and now with Alexis.

She lets out a jagged shaking breath and then spins away, stalking toward the exit, muttering under her breath. Except her muttering is louder than most yells. “I don’t get it. He wants her over me? I just don’t get it…”

Conrad gestures at me with the cell phone, eyebrow raised.

“Let me get this call over with. And then I’ll take you home.”

“Thank you,” I murmur, squeezing closer to him, resting my head against his chest. “For what you said, about wanting me more. It means a lot.”

“Of course,” he growls. “She needs to get it into her thick goddamn skull. I’ve never been interested in her.”

“It seems like she has a problem with being rejected. Like she can’t believe it. It’s like what you said – maybe no other man has ever rejected her before.”

“Well, she can ask me a hundred times and I’ll say no every damn time. You’re the only woman I want.”

Forever, I whisper in my mind, but we can’t reclaim the moment she shattered, the word love hovering in the air.