Chapter 90 Percy
Percy's POV
The silence in my office was deafening, and as much as I wanted to crash something, I couldn't, so I just stood by the window with a glass of scotch. The view in front of me was one people would kill for, but I wasn't even seeing it.
Outside, the rain was mercilessly beating against the glass, blurring the glittering lights of the street. It made the view before me even more cinematic, but all I saw was a mess. A smeared gray mess because that was exactly how I felt. A completely shattered mess.
She didn't even wait around to see my reaction to her just flaking out on me like that. Her final words from the boardroom were playing on a loop in my head. I had pushed too hard. I had used my authority to corner her, hoping that the physical proximity would break her resolve, but all I had done was drive her away again. I could swear she would have let me kiss her if I hadn't opened my big mouth and asked her to come home.
"You're such a fool, Percy." I groaned to myself and gripped the glass tighter, hoping it would break and cut my hand. Maybe the pain would distract me from the pain in my chest.
It didn't, so I took another sip of the bitter liquid. The sting wasn't nearly enough of a distraction.
I was a man with more money than a lot of people, with a small army at my command. Hell, I have the entire city of New York sitting in the palm of my hand, and I have never felt more powerless in my entire life. She looked at me like I was the monster under her bed and the truth was that I couldn't even blame her. I had become the monster I swore I would protect her from.
I walked over to my desk and set the heavy glass down on the table. I needed to draft her a formal apology that would contain a promise to keep my distance and keep things strictly professional, just to ensure she didn't quit the firm entirely.
If she left Royal and Associates, I wouldn't even have those stolen hours in the boardroom anymore.
I reached for my laptop and started to type when I heard the ding of my private elevator. I was instantly on alert. Security knew not to let anyone in after midnight without verbal authorization from me, so this was not looking good.
I slid my hand instinctively toward the top drawer of my desk, where I kept a loaded gun. I stood up and was clicking the gun's safety off when I heard it, the click of heels against the floor.
I knew that walk. It was only one person; it could be. My heart seized in my chest as I thought about the several reasons why Adeline could be here.
Why was she back? Did she forget her briefcase? Was she coming to drop her resignation letter on my desk so she never had to look at me again? Did she come this late so she could avoid seeing me?
I quickly hid the gun back in its place when I saw her already by the glass door. Instead of making her wait, I hit the switch that let the glass walls become transparent so she could see that I was inside. Maybe her plan was to drop the letter under my door? I didn't know.
But she didn't turn back when she saw me; she just stood in the doorway with her damp coat from the rain. She also wasn't holding anything; she just stood there and looked at me with an expression I wasn't sure what it meant.
Seeing her standing in my doorway, looking so beautiful and so completely out of my reach, finally snapped the last remaining thread of my control. I was ready to surrender.
"Adeline, please," I started, my voice rough and entirely stripped of my usual arrogance. I stepped out from behind the desk and held my hands up in surrender. "Before you say anything, just listen to me."
She blinked, parting her lips to speak, but I couldn't let her finish. If she told me she was leaving the firm, it would kill me.
"I'll give it up," I blurted out, the words rushing out of me desperately. I closed the distance between us, stopping just two feet away from her so I wouldn't scare her off again. "I'm going to step down. I will sign the transfer papers tomorrow morning and give the syndicate back to Richard. I will liquidate the offshore accounts and pull the shadow detail off your back."
Adeline stared at me, completely stunned. "Percy..."
But I wasn't done. "I will hire legitimate private security and find another way to keep your father away from you. Just don't walk away from me, Adeline. I can't do this anymore. I can't sit across from you every day, breathing the same air, and not be allowed to hold you. I will walk in the light again. I'm going to be whatever you need me to be, just please..."
"No." Two letters and it was enough to make me cry. My stomach plummeted. We were now past compromising because she now wanted nothing to do with me. "Percy, look at me."
I opened my eyes to find that she had stepped closer to me. She was now in my space so close that I could smell the perfume and rain in her hair.
Slowly, her hands came up to hold my jaw gently. I felt like a man that had been reborn.
"No," she repeated. "You are not giving it up. You are not signing anything back to Richard, and you are absolutely not pulling Alex off my detail."
I stared down at her in complete confusion. What was happening? "I don't understand."
"I was blind," she confessed, her thumbs brushing lightly over my cheekbones. The tears she had been fighting finally spilled over, tracking down her face, but she was smiling, so that was good. "I was punishing you for a darkness you didn't create. You didn't drag me into the dark, Percy. You built a fortress in it so the monsters couldn't get to me, and I hated you for it because I was too terrified to admit that I needed you, that I need you."
"Adeline..." I breathed, my hands coming up to grip her waist, terrified she was going to disappear, that this was a dream.
"I don't want to run anymore. I don't want to live in the light without you. I came back to claim what's mine."
That declaration was enough for me to stop hesitating. I pulled her even closer, then tilted her head back before I crashed my mouth down onto hers. In response, she wove her arms around my neck, almost strangling me, but I didn't mind.
The kiss wasn't gentle at all. I nipped at her skin and licked her lips like a teenage boy.
I backed her up until her back hit the door, slamming it shut behind us. I poured every ounce of my grief and the fear I had been feeling into the kiss.
I had my woman back, and God help any man who tried to take her away from me again.