Damage Control

Chapter 39

Minutes passed as I laid there under the sheets, listening for his retreating footsteps, but when I didn't hear any, I whipped the covers off my head only to find Nathaniel staring down at me through his ocean eyes with a blank expression on his face. But what caught my attention was seeing him in a tight-fitting t-shirt revealing his muscular tattooed arms and sweatpants instead of his usual suffocating suit and tie.

"Get out," I mumbled weakly, flipping around so he could only see the back of my matted head.

"Anastazi—"

"As CEO of a billion-dollar company, I'd expect you to understand basic words like leave me alone."

"How are you feeling?" Nathaniel murmured, ignoring my snide remark.

"Please go away, I don't have time for this," I sighed, flipping the sheets over my head again in an attempt to block him out.

His footsteps finally retreated away from the bed, and when I heard my bedroom door shut, confirming that he had left, I let out a sigh of relief, thankful that he finally listened to me for once.

Or so I thought.

The bed suddenly dipped behind me, and a muscular arm wrapped around my sweaty body, engulfing me in a blanket of warmth.

"Don't fight me," Nathaniel whispered, slipping a warm hand under my shirt and rubbing small circles along my belly, his fingers brushing against my bare breasts occasionally.

A shiver of pleasure ran down my spine, and I found myself snuggling closer to his chest instead of kicking him out. At this point, I had no more fight left in me, I was drained, mentally and physically and my body had given up on me a long time ago. All I could do was lay there and embrace the comforting feeling until I was strong enough to handle things properly.

My eyes shifted to the clock sitting on my nightstand, and realization hit. It was well after 6 PM, the time Nathaniel should've been somewhere else signing a contract to close a deal with the redhead's father, the same deal he's been working on for the past month.

"Aren't you supposed to be somewhere else closing a deal right now?" I whispered quietly, almost to myself.

He sighed heavily and pressed his lips against my hair but said nothing as he continued rubbing small circles along my abdomen. I almost thought he didn't hear me until I felt the vibrations of his deep voice against my head as he spoke.

"Something more important came up."

Butterflies immediately erupted in my stomach, and I couldn't help the blush that crept up to my cheeks. But I wasn't naive enough to think that things were okay between us now just because he knew his way around words.

Actions were what mattered most to me, and the fact that he was here with me now instead of somewhere else signing that contract putting himself first—his company first said a lot about the person he's becoming because the old Nathaniel would've already been celebrating another closed deal.

The last thing I remembered was him whispering incoherent words in my ear, but I was too tired to make out what he was saying as my eyes fluttered shut. I sighed heavily in contentment, and he pulled me closer, tucking my head under his chin as I drifted off into the darkness.

~

Disappointment flooded through me when I turned around the next morning and found the spot Nathaniel once laid in cold and empty as if he was never there, just like the time in Italy. I rolled my eyes and flipped the comforters over my head to go back to sleep, but the smell of eggs and waffles wafted into my nostrils, waking me up completely. I shot up out of bed too fast, feeling vomit rising in my throat from the spinning room around me, and it took everything in me to keep the liquid down.