Chapter 72 Lose my mind
ALEXANDER POV
I was finishing my final sweep of the CCTV feed. There had been some strange movements near the perimeter lately. It didn't worry me, no one breathed on my land without my permission not without wishing for a very specific and agonizing kind of death, but I kept my eyes on the monitors nonetheless.
I was heading back to my study when I caught a flash of pink by the fountain.
Aurora was sitting on the grass with Liam, a floral dress spread around her like petals, somehow made her look brighter than everything around her. Her brunette hair had grown longer, almost reaching her ass now. It used to be trimmed short when she first moved in. It grew fast.
I strolled toward them. As if she could sense me, she lifted her head. Her smile faltered the moment our eyes met. She stopped talking to Liam and rolled her eyes.
She’d been doing this shit for days now and it was pissing me the fuck off.
It was infuriating. It was driving me toward a goddamn breakdown.
Every time she was talking to someone ,Vivienne, Liam, the staff, the second she saw me coming, she shut up. She was making me miserable. I could barely focus at work because all I thought about was how to make my wife talk to me again. Even making her cum hadn’t worked.
Which frankly said more about her stubbornness than anything else.
“Hey Daddy, did you come to get your wife?” Liam asked, looking up with a big grin. He was drawing a picture of the three of us.
Hearing my son talked sometimes still seemed like a miracle. Aurora had done that. She pulled him out of almost five years of mutism.
“Yes buddy,” I said, ruffling his hair. “Give us a few minutes. She’s all yours when I’m done.”
He gave me a thumbs up and walked back inside without question. My absolute legend.
I looked down at Aurora.
The sun was hitting her face directly and her freckles were catching the light in a way that was genuinely difficult to look away from. She was breathtaking. Ethereal almost. Like something that had no business being as beautiful as it was.
Sometimes I thought of her as Anastasia reincarnated, an angel sent back to me in a different body. A different life.
She didn’t spare me a glance. Just kept drawing whatever she was drawing.
"Are you ever going to talk to me?" I asked, pulling my hoodie cap back.
She finally looked at me, that hidden spark of admiration in her eyes making my heart do a traitorous flip. She pulled out her phone and typed frantically.
"When you start seeing me as Rory."
I wanted to snap something sarcastic about reminding her of her place, but I held it in. I was desperate. I needed her voice back. I needed her. And the thought of her never speaking to me again was doing something to my head that I was not going to examine too carefully.
"I'll get you every book you want," I said, leaning over her. "A full collection of your dark romance, the filthiest smut or porn you can find-even titles that haven't hit the shelves yet. I'll make it happen."
Her head shot up, interest flickering in her eyes. She typed again. "That's not enough."
I let out a short, sharp laugh. "I'll buy you a pink Ferrari."
"Not enough."
God, she was playing me. "What else? More black cards? More orgasms?"
She typed quickly: “That too. And I want more.”
I laughed. I genuinely laughed. I had no idea my wife was this materialistic and I found it completely fine. I had more money than I could spend in three lifetimes. She could burn through as much of it as she wanted.
“Should I buy the Chanel company and put it under your name,” I said. “Dior as well. That place Viviane took you — Victoria something — I can buy that too.”
She just sat there, looking at me like l'd lost my mind. Then, she started throwing sign language at me. I felt a vein throb in my temple. I was the most composed man in the underworld, yet this girl was unravelling me simply by refusing to speak and I was standing in my own garden negotiating with sign language I didn’t understand like a man who had completely lost the plot.
"Fine! Fine," | growled, playing my final card.
"I'll let you see your parents. You can spend the whole day with them."
I knew she couldn't say no to that. I'd seen her staring at their pictures when she thought I wasn't looking.
She typed and showed me: “Thank you, Alexander. I’ll talk if you let me see them.”
Thank fuck.
I knew that would work. One of the reasons I hadn’t let her see them before was because of that waste-of-sperm ex of hers called — Steph, Step, Joseph, whatever his name was — who kept appearing wherever she was like a bad smell that couldn’t locate the exit. I got allergic reactions just thinking about him. I would have killed him already but I was trying to be a "gentleman" for her. Besides, the Brotherhood is already suspicious, if I start killing for her, they'll know she isn't just a replacement anymore. They'd want her dead.
Which was not happening.
"Anything for my wife," | rasped, my lips curling as her face flushed a deep crimson. "You leave tomorrow morning. But when you get back, be ready to use that voice to scream my name until you lose it again."
She stood up hastily, clutching her sketchbook, and rolled her eyes at me before walking away.
And like a dog, I followed her.
I couldn't help it. She was like a magnet, and I was just metal.
She stopped abruptly at the edge of a massive puddle left over from last night's rain. I waited for her to walk around it, but she just turned to me and frowned, signing something angrily with attitude.
This bold rebellious version of Aurora both terrified and excited me in ways I wasn’t prepared to examine.
"You know I don't understand a word of that, right?" | deadpanned.
She typed: "There's a puddle. I need to walk."
I looked at her, then at the puddle. She just shrugged.
Is she on her period or something? She could’ve just taken another path.
I sighed. I reached up and pulled off my limited-edition Loro Piana hoodie.
I knelt down and laid the expensive fabric right over the mud and water.
She didn't even hesitate. She walked right over my hoodie, using it as a bridge, and headed into the house without a single backward glance.
The things this woman makes me do.
I stayed crouched on the ground for a moment looking at my hoodie sitting in a puddle of rainwater.
She'd better let me hear her voice tomorrow, or I swear I’m going to lose my mind.