THE THIRTY DAYS SEX CHALLENGE. (✔)

5.0| PAIN.

Chapter dedication: jackie-l

Song of recommendation for the chapter: Stitches - Shawn Mendes 🎶🎧🎶.

*

Chris watched the sunset from his home. He glanced around at the luxury furnishings and the life that was full of the best things money could buy. But it felt empty. It felt the way it had before he'd met Ledia Arden and his life had changed.

Obsessions had a way of doing that.

But the thing was he no longer believed she was only an obsession. Her words that last night in front of the bakery haunted him. A million times he replayed them. Heard her say that what they had was a waste of time and that they were never meant to be.

He'd been heartbroken.

For a while he hadn't even contemplated on how to fix this mess they were in. He'd wanted to find another woman and prove to Ledia exactly how desirable he was to other women, how much it hurt to be dumped unceremoniously. But he'd been disinterested in any other woman.

Then this past three days he realized how much joy she'd brought to his life. Not just her presence in his bed, but the way she had helped him discover happiness again; helped him with his family. The effortless way she had of making connections between people and ensuring no one felt inferior.

The way she had four and a half weeks ago. In retrospect, he understood perfectly where he'd gone wrong.

His gut said to call her back and make her another offer. Have her take him back on her terms. Be her love slave or whatever else she'd have from him.

But another part, a bigger part, was still seething about her dismissal and was truly afraid of what she made him feel. He'd hurt this past three weeks in a way that he'd never felt before. His life had been a glided one of privilege where no woman denied him anything.

Until Ledia. His Lee. He wanted her back. He wanted her happy.

There was a knock on his study door before it opened. He glanced over his shoulder to see Maryann, his weekly cleaner, standing in the doorway. "Are you receiving sir?"

"Who is it, Ann?" He asked, hoping against hope that it would be Lee. If she came to him, he'd take her back,  dismissal be damned.

"Your brother, sir."

The last thing he wanted was to talk to his brother who seemed mad with him about that night with April. Even his sister refused to speak with him and his mother didn't call him like she did before, claiming that she would talk to him when he resolved things with Ledia and stopped mopping around. Chris knew that she was already upset about he and April, had her doubts about their relationship, which wasn't surprising after she ended things between them.

God, he was such a mess.

But he had also been a total ass to Lee. Deserting her when she needed him the most wasn't a stellar record on his part too.

Lee wasn't coming back, If what she said to him that night was anything to go by. It hurt like hell; her words he meant. They were like tiny needles piercing his skin deeply and he couldn't get them out. The thought of her responding to another man, the way she did when they made love, made his body boil with jealousy.

She loved him. That's what she said. But he wasn't so sure she really loved him. Maybe she said it to him in the heat of the moment, or because hearing it would make him feel better.

Chris rubbed his hands over his face.

I don't know what to believe anymore.

"Sir?"