Just laying with Elliot like that, I felt a mix of emotions. I felt peace in the most turbulent condition. I was filled with this feeling of unexplained contentment. There was a moment that was stretched onto the infinite expanses of time and it made me believe that time wasn't moving, for once. This whole situation was contrary to every day of my life where I felt the pressure of waking up in the form of the passage of time.

It was like, I opened my eyes and so much time had passed.

The dim orange light reflected on one side of his face as he laid quietly on the bed with his body facing me, legs folded and hands that slid and laid under his head. I copied his posture. For most of the time, his eyes would meet mine and stay locked but sometimes I would feel him slipping into his haunting past as he would stare at the wall at the back of my head.

I could honestly see it in his eyes, his protected, snuggled-up demeanour that he was haunted and shook up by all of it.

"Elliot, I think you should file a complaint against her under domestic abuse. Because staying silent like this is not okay."

"Yeah," his eyes looked at something behind my head.

"Who will believe me? You? My mom? My father? My friends? That's it. Not the jury."

I closed my eyes because I didn't want the pity to be reflected in my eyes.

Sure, I'm up for women getting advantages and benefits like men have received for so many years but not like this.

Women who abuse men and think that they will never be put behind bars because of the mere advantage that nobody will believe a man when he says that he was abused disgusts me.

If patriarchy sucks, matriarchy isn't the solution. Equality is the balance.

"You have abuse marks on your face. There will be surveillance footage, and video camera recordings of you outside your office, on the factory main gates, and within the elevator. We will show the evidence, Eli. The evidence speaks in the court of law. What the evidence says, is the gospel truth. I know that much about justice."

My persistence doesn't seem to shake him out of denial. He is adamant in his opinion that things won't tip in his favour.

He scoffs as he processes my words completely and sits up, " oh! You think she will not have proof?"

Now it's my turn to sit up straight, "will she have some proof? Did you do anything, Elliot?"

He is appalled by my words and frankly, hurt, "no obviously not. I did not lay a finger on my woman."

He shakes his head and starts to slap the side of his head like a maniac. I look at him in alarm, eyes wide and heart-pounding, and my body trembling., "Get it fucking together, Elliot. She is not your woman anymore."

He keeps on chanting the same words again and again while slapping himself. I jump up and rapidly pull him into my chest, grasping his hand in mine. I use a lot of force to stop his movements.

After some moments he becomes silent, although his breathing takes much longer to calm down.

"Elliot, stop letting these things control you," I mutter as I rub my hand up and down on his back.

"It's easy for you to say. I can't understand how she can forget everything and catapult into this..this horrible monster," disdain could be heard in his tone.

I loosen my arms around him and pull myself back, adding some space between us. He has a look of confusion on his face. I cross my legs and play with my hands in my lap, a habit I've come to realise I resort to, whenever I have something to say that I don't want to but it needs to be said.

"What is it, Charlotte?"

"Elliot, what happened after I left?"

"She became jealous," he acquiesced.

I look at him, confused, "jealous? Over what?"

He looked at me and then he looked back down and exhaled a sigh. He didn't look up once.

Oh!

He won't look up at me.

What does that mean?

It strikes me light a lightning rod.

"Was she jealous because of me?" I whispered, almost to myself.

He didn't look up nor did he answer me.

"Oh no! All of this happened because of me?! Shit, Elliot, you're hurt because of me! Everything was fine before I came in between you guys and now you're hurt! I can never forgive myself."

"Stop it, Char. It's not your fault. I was the one who cheated on her and I might have felt bad about it before, but not anymore. She didn't love me as she claimed she did. I don't think she ever did. I think it was all about money but I was so blind."

My heart starts beating frantically because it is getting its hopes up. This poor little thing!

He held my hand for support, "I don't regret kissing you. I don't regret meeting you. Hell! I don't regret the first time I teased you. So what I'm trying to say is.."

This is not the time to pause, Elliot!

I know the moment is very serious and not the one for smiling, but I can't stop the smile from gracing my lips. He gives me his gorgeous smile back and the butterflies in my stomach go insane.

He grabs me by my thighs and pulls me closer to him. He holds my ankle and puts one leg by the side of his leg. He does the same with the other leg. Once again he pulls me closer so that my chest is almost touching his and the space between our faces is minimal.

He brings his left hand closer to my face and moves the strand of hair behind my ear. His lips move closer to my face and instinctively, I close my eyes. My smile widens when he kisses my forehead.

Warmth fills my heart the moment, heat from his lips transverses to my forehead. He places a kiss on my cheeks. I smile brighter. Then he kisses the corners of my lips, deliberately avoiding my lips.

He pulls back and my eyes open.

"I like you a lot, Charlotte,"

Holy shit!

But before I can respond, he continues while slipping his fingers into my hand that rested on my lap, "but I am a fucked up man. I thought I knew what love was. I was proved wrong. I have so many trust issues. I am a very insecure man. I'm needy, toxic, and downright annoying. The worst person you could find to date would still be better than me. So this is me, keeping your best interests in my mind, telling you to stay away from me. Please resist me, say no to me, put boundaries on me, and don't let me control you. Make it hard for me because I am the kind of man who takes it for granted when he finds it easy."

I unlink my hand from his and he closes his eyes. When I place them back on his shoulders and drag one hand to his face, he opens his eyes.

"What I see is a man secure enough to admit all the things he's insecure about, a man who knows his negatives so that he can watch them out, a man who puts in ample amounts of effort for a simple thing that he deliberately complicates and makes it harder because he likes it hard,"

He is stunned at my words. I place my hand on his cheek and smile at him, "Elliot. What I mean to say is, that I already like you. So it's too late for you to give me this warning. If you're in, I'm in."

A shy innocent smile slowly breaks out on his face and he looks down like a cute little cat. I laugh and wrap my arms at the back of his neck and pull him closer to me, "now kiss me, idiot."

He laughs and obeys, kissing me slowly. My heart flutters at the gentle kiss and the way his lips warm mine. A tingling sensation converts into this uncontrolled fire within my body and it spreads through each cell sparking a chain reaction and every cell felt alive. I felt alive in every possible way and it was because of Elliot.

The kiss deepened unknowingly because we were both lost in the moment. His hands slipped at the side of my neck and it wasn't a gentle kiss anymore. His lips weren't pecking me, they were devouring me. The hunger was visible on both sides.

He stopped only for a second to gain some air into his lungs. He attached his forehead to mine as he closed his eyes. I did too. Our eyes collided as I opened mine to find him already staring at me, "fuck, I like you so much, Char."

"I wish you would've come into my life earlier on," he whispers heavily, his voice husky from the kiss making him sound so sexy.

"Well, you have me now," I replied.

He raised an eyebrow, still panting.

He attached his lips to mine and slowly pushed me back onto the bed. My back hit the mattress and he climbed over to straighten his body so now the whole of his body was touching me. The heat was searing through each of the cells. If he wasn't wearing anything, I would be so hot.

He came down and I bit my lip.

"Don't," he warns.

I bite my lip again.

"Don't do that. Don't bite it," he frees my lip with his hand.

I have this bold need to ask him, "why? It's my lip, I'll do whatever I want to."

"Okay. Don't blame me for the consequences then. And if you love biting your lip so much, just let me do it for you the next time," he pecks me after he says that.

That sure shut me up!

His fingers barely touch the uncovered skin on my neck and I feel a jolt of current in my body. He kisses my neck on the other side. His hand slips from my chest, feather touching my breast, and onto my stomach till his hand rests at the hem of my top. I feel myself getting hot.

I know what is about to happen and I am ready for it. I know I want it.

He stops kissing me and asks for permission with his eyes and I nod my head. His silver chain hangs down between us and I pull his chain and crush his lips against mine.

"As much as I want to do this Charlotte, I don't think tonight is the night," he speaks against my lips.

The sting of rejection is hurtful and that is laced in my every movement. I narrow my eyes and drop them from his whiskey-colored ones. I roll my lips inside my mouth, "hum. Why exactly?"

"Hey, look at me. It's nothing. It's embarrassing," he says as he rolls over on his side opposite me.

I lay behind him and put my arm on his waist. I mutter against his back, "tell me," I poke his back with my nose, two to three times.

"I don't feel ready to be intimate. That's all. Normally it's what girls say so it's embarrassing for me as a man, that I'm putting a pause to what could have been a tremendous night for me, for us," he says.

My heart warms at his statement. The pain of rejection vanished with his few words.

"Elliot. It's okay. And saying no works for both men and women, but thanks for making me aware of your reason. It lightens the impact your words had on me and it feels nice to know that you trust me with all of this," I laugh.

He turns around, "sorry Charlotte. You're beautiful inside out, and any man, especially a worthless fuck like me would be so happy to have you so don't ever let yourself down. Never let yourself down for something a man did."

Oh my!

A huge smile breaks out on my face and I hug him, "thanks for what you said but you are not worthless," I pepper kisses on his face. I think I even licked him once or twice while kissing him because I was just madly doing it. He laughs amidst that.

"You just licked me, " he laughs.

"Sorry," I replied, cheekily.

"No worries. I like dogs," he says.

I raise my eyebrows and my mouth opens wide, "did you just call me a dog?"

"No. I said I like dogs and I also like you,"

"Wow," I reply sarcastically.

After some time of cuddling, he leaves to use the washroom and my phone starts ringing.

"Hello," I answered.

"Hello, am I talking to Miss Charlotte Jones, chief nuclear engineer at N.N.P.O ?" Speaks the voice on the other side.

"Who are you?" I lean forward, trying to wrack up my memory if I've heard this voice before or not.

"I'm Robert Wright," he answers.

"Okay. Am I supposed to know you from somewhere?" I ask him because I'm so confused. I'm pretty sure I've never heard of that name before.

"No, Miss Jones. We've never met before. You hadn't done anything bad to deserve to see me, but now you have."

This is so creepy.

"Who are you and what do you want?" I get off the bed and start to walk towards the lobby, closing the door of the room behind me. I see the lights of the bathroom still on.

"Ma'am I just told you my name and I would like to discuss the incidents that have been happening to you since the accident," he replied. He takes a pause and I hear him breathing out loudly.
I think he's smoking.

"What authority do you hold? Who do you work for? If somebody wants to talk to me officially, I'm going to need an official mail or something and I'm not going to say anything without talking to my lawyer first," I fill up a glass of water as I hold my phone in between my shoulder and ear. I place the glass over the kitchen slab.

"Very well and I officially give you the permission to talk to me, Miss Jones," he replies after a few seconds.

"Excuse me? Who do you think you are?" This man is getting on my nerves!

"Your lawyer, madame."

I laugh, "okay. I'm going to put the phone down now."

"Miss Jones, you are fully free to end our conversation but I must say that the conversations going inside C.I.C. don't sound good for you."

That bastard! Now he knew he completely had me!

"Is the central investigation of crimes looking into me?" I whisper into the phone.

"Yes. But I'm afraid I can't tell you over the phone...," he trails off.

"Because my phone is being tapped by them. Aren't you afraid now they'll know about you helping me?" I ask him, curiously.

"Let's just say - me and them, we have a long history plus if you hire me as your lawyer, everybody will know about me anyway so it doesn't matter. I'm already on their hit list and they would probably be expecting me to reach out to you. So I'm just someone who's playing by their book, according to them at least," he says.

Interesting.

"If you want me to appoint you as my lawyer, I need to know why you would go out of your way to make me your client? Is it fame? Is it some black spot on your resume that you want to remove from my high-profile case? Do you want to climb up the reputation ladder of the best lawyers? Why do you want this?"

"They made a mistake. But they ruined anything that came in between to hide that mistake and that! That is a sin."

Chills spread over my body at the confidence in his voice. This man has made up his mind and maybe I can use that to my advantage. He has a motive and passion to fulfil that motive, both the things that are required to achieve something. He isn't fighting for me, he is fighting for something that matters to him and the route is through me so he will have to give his hundred percent which means the probability of him screwing me over is nil.

"When do you want to meet, Mr. Robert Wright?" I ask him, cutting straight to the point. I bet he's doing a victory dance!

"Day after tomorrow will be fine. I'll be able to make time for you right in the morning. Please be at the address I text you at sharp 7.00 am," he says.

No way am I going alone that early in the morning.

"You can bring your bodyguards, secretary or your boyfriend or everybody along because trust me, I am not someone who wants to kill you," he says and then cuts the call.

I place the phone on the black granite marble of the kitchen counter and lean forward, resting my chin on both of my palms.

I think back on the words he said.

He told me to meet him in the morning of the day after yesterday. No, he said he'll be able to make time for me.

Oh! He wanted to show me he's such a busy person that he's making time for me. He didn't want to come off as someone desperate for work.

A man of self-respect.

And passionate.

And the most important thing-with a personal motive and a quest for vendetta but in a legal way.

That leaves me with one thought because my decision was made subconsciously way before I came to accept it- I need to go to this meeting.

Author's note

Enters Mr. Robert!
I don't know what to say about this chapter. I have been doing evening shifts at my training so I've been able to find very less time to write. I could write this chapter in three days because of hectic work schedule. I hope I did fine. Let me know.

Love, Leena ❤❤
Bye-bye, until next time.