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Aw. Did someone break your heart? Laurence Who said I have one?
After being vulnerable with one too many assholes, I’m done wearing my heart on my sleeve—both literally and figuratively. My choice to dim my personality isn’t a confidence issue. It’s a trust one. If a man wants to get to know me, he needs to work for it.
“You and I were never friends.”
So here I am, a witness to everyone else’s love story after spending so long wishing for mine.
“I wished for you.” He bopped my nose. “I wished for Dahlia. I’ve wished for so many different things in my life because to wish is to hope, and that’s the one thing no one can take away from you.”
“If my actions said anything, it was that I liked you too damn much, Lily. That was my problem. Never you.”
“I wasn’t looking for anything real when I joined the app, but meeting you made me consider it.”
“Spell it out for me.” “I’d rather demonstrate.”
“I can tell we’re going to have fun together.” Her voice has a husky rasp to it.
It happens so fast, I don’t fully process what Lily is doing until her mouth is pressing against mine, making me forget about the chaos ensuing around us.
This is your OCD talking. Lily is fine.
Lily Sure, baby. Me I hate the nickname, by the way. Only because my heart does this little jolt every damn time she uses it. Lily Good. Now I love it even more.
I already have enough to worry about when it comes to myself, so becoming obsessed with Lily is the last thing I need. Even if she’s everything I want.
“If you want an answer, then ask the question.”
“Why do you care if I’m quiet?” she asks.
“Because that means you’re upset, and I’ve come to realize I don’t like that.”
She smiles to herself, like she is in on a joke I’m not privy to.
I tangle my fingers in her hair and force her to look at me. “Tell me.”
“Love the outfit, baby.” His hands find the curve of my ass and stay there, claiming me in front of the entire bar full of twenty- and thirty-somethings. “Make another comment about it and I’ll find a better way to keep your mouth busy.”
He laughs. It’s strong and hearty, leaving no room for me to question whether it’s genuine or not, and it makes my heart sing.
let them look. Let them stare. Let them wish they were going home with the most beautiful woman in this bar—in this town—for all I care. I’ve been there. Many times, in fact, when it comes to you. So if anything, I sympathize with them because they can want you, but they’ll never truly have you.”
“Lesson number one of dating a billionaire: When they offer their black card, you only ask, What’s the limit?” “There isn’t one,” Julian and I say at the same time before shooting each other a look.
“What about amore mio*?” Her cheeks flush, and I officially have her new nickname.
“It’s called caring, Lorenzo. I know it’s an unfamiliar concept to you with the way your family has acted, but it’s normal. Hell, it should be the standard, and I’m sorry people in your life made you think it wasn’t.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want you to do better, or else one day I’m not going to forgive you again.”
One day you’ll care about someone so much, you’ll miss them as soon as they leave,
I want to be chased, not be the one doing the chasing.
Lorenzo follows beside me, blocking me from the busy street. It’s such a small gesture, but it’s the littlest ones that always send my heart into a tailspin.
I start counting my underwear because why did I pack ten pairs for a two-night stay? Did I plan to shit myself multiple times?
When I open my wallet to grab my credit card, I find all of them missing except for a black one with Lorenzo’s name on it.
Lorenzo Show your gratitude by spending more of my money. Me Doubt I can make much of a dent in your bank account, but I’ll try my best.
He stares at my mouth like he loves to loathe it.
Being taken care of…being held in his arms like I matter…
I’ll never be able to give you what you want. I can’t. I’m incapable of loving someone else, and if anyone deserves the happy ending they want, it’s you.”
people like me—people like my father—we don’t love. We don’t know how to. Instead we obsess, to the point of making ourselves sick over someone else.”
“Love is obsession. They go hand in hand.” “No.” He shakes his head. “Love is good. It’s pure. What goes on in my head…it’s the complete opposite.”
“What if I want to be obsessed over?” I lean forward and press my mouth to his ear. “What if I want to be possessed?”
I stand on the tips of my toes and press my mouth to his. It’s chaste compared to our earlier kisses, but it still makes my lips tingle, and my fingers itch to touch him. “How’s that?” Why do I sound breathy from an innocent kiss? He wets his bottom lip, dragging my attention right toward it. “Better than anything money could buy.” “Says the millionaire who already has everything he needs.” “Not everything,” he rasps.
I want someone to be loyal to me. Not because we’re family or since we’ve spent our entire lives around each other, because I already have that. I want someone who supports me because we’re a team by choice, not by circumstance.
when you find the one person in the world who sees you—who takes the time to collect every broken piece of your spirit and helps you put it back together—you don’t let them go.
what do you mean you can’t get over your grief? There’s no such thing!”
“So long as you love your parents, you’ll never stop grieving them, so the best way you can help yourself is to learn to coexist with the feeling.”
“Sharing that pain with each other so we both feel less…alone.”
anymore about what we are. I don’t want to pretend. I want you to be mine, not because of an arrangement but because you choose to be.” “You mean that?” “With every fiber of my being.”
“If I had a thirty-year plan, you’d be the woman I would want to share it with.”
Lorenzo once described falling in love as a collection of small, impactful moments, and this happens to be one of them for me. I can feel it.
I appreciate him. His strength. His resilience. The confidence he exudes, and the way he brings out the same in me. He makes me want to believe in myself again and my ability to handle anything that comes my way, because I know that if I struggle, he will be there to support me until I can hold my own.
“If you’re not thinking of me all week, then I didn’t do my job right.”
Lily sprawled out in my bed, looking up at me like I offered her the world. Little does she know, she’s quickly becoming the center of mine, and I plan on spending the night showing her.
I’m addicted. Utterly, completely, unbelievably addicted to her.
