Must Love Dogs

Chapter Twenty-Two

Must Love Dogs- Chapter Twenty-Two

Stefan clenched his teeth together, sighing out a breath and leaning his head against the steering wheel. As much as he wanted to keep this all a secret, he was pretty sure that Elena would find out from someone sooner rather than later. The light tapping on the passenger side window shook Stefan out of his trance as he inhaled deeply, gathering his thoughts.

"Aren't you coming inside?" Elena asked him, a small smile forming across her lips.

"Yeah." Stefan told her, rolling down his window and turning the car off. Elena watched as he pulled the keys out of the ignition and placed them into his suit pockets, stepping out of the Maserati with ease.

"Duke chewed up another pair of your Italian loafers and he went to the bathroom in the house. I think he also broke into the bag of treats that were in the lower cabinet pantry, because I found the bag on the floor. Although, the pound of dog treats were all gone. Honestly, I have no idea how he even got into it. But, he seems to find his way into anything. Including a pair of your red boxers because he's running around the backyard with them right now, stuck on his head." Elena rambled on with a laugh as she turned her back away from Stefan for a minute to walk over to the sliding door and pull the dog inside, noticing that he had already chewed a pretty large sized hole in the front of Stefan's boxers.

"I guess Duke prefers boxers or briefs." She joked, pausing to look over at Stefan. " I found them all over the place. Apparently, you left your dresser drawer half open." She explained, closing the sliding door and leaning against it to look up at Stefan. That's when she realized that something wasn't adding up. He wasn't laughing at her jokes, he wasn't even looking at her in the eyes. Instead, he was avoiding her gaze, his shoulders were rolled back and he was tense, very tense with every movement he made.

"What's wrong?" Elena asked him, watching when he ran his hand through his spiky and gelled back hair.

"There's something I need to tell you." He replied with a shaky tone, rocking back on the soles of his shoes and finally meeting her gaze. Elena looked as if all the happiness had drained from her and before she could ask what was going on, the cell phone in her pocket went off with the sound of what she knew was a text message.

"Don't read that, Elena. Please, let me explain first." Stefan begged and pleaded with her. But, it was already too late. Her once vibrant and smiling brown eyes were abruptly filling with anger and hatred towards him as her words echoed throughout the living room where they stood. "He won, Elena. Stefan Salvatore has finally managed to ruin our lives. The plaza is gone and so is the shop. Sweetheart, I hope you're not with him right now because if you are. I want you to leave and I want you to go home. He's been lying to you all along. This was his plan the whole time."

"What does my aunt mean by this? What is she talking about?" Elena bombarded him with questions as he shook his head, sharply inhaling.

"Rebekah ordered a construction company to come in and demolish your aunt's salon and all of the other surrounding properties so that we could build our apartments. My name was on the order form. It still is." He quickly corrected, watching her face fall as she angrily clutched her cell phone in her right hand.

"What do you mean, it still is? Stefan, I thought that you said-." He raised his hand up, cutting her off before she could think of more to say.

"I mean that when Rebekah and I were married that we had planned on building those apartments together. Elena, I've had eyes on this location for a few years. But, with zoning laws and other restrictions. I wasn't able to do anything about it, until a few months ago." He tried to explain with an honest tone, watching as her darkened brown eyes filled with unshed tears and the tears she was trying to suppress were slowly spilling over Elena's red and heated cheeks.