Chapter 24

**| A U R O R A |**

My temper got me into this mess called life in the first place, but it seemed like I would never learn the lesson—even in the hardest of ways. After the fight, Marco wouldn’t so much so look at me, and I was left to grovel on my own.

I felt sorry—truly—except I didn’t know how to express in words and actions to show him. So when Sammy called me over to hang out, I was both relieved and worried.

Worried because I didn’t know how things were going to pan out for both of us, now that the Pandora’s Box lay wide open. But Sammy turned out to be the crazy woman I have always known her to be and completely laughed it out. 

Instead, she wanted to plan our marriage, the name of the kids, and the university they would go to. And if it was up to her, she’d probably fix their marriage as well.

But when I narrated the new twists in the fairytale she was weaving for me, she burst out laughing again. I looked at her crossly and pursed my lips firmly until she had her fun.

“Are you done?” I asked, throwing a pillow at her head that she conveniently dodged.

“Okay, okay,” she said, wiping the corner of her eyes. “Let me get the details straight. You fought with him, and then made up. After that, he popped your cherry, and again you fought with him—”

I cut her in, pouting. “It wasn’t me who started the fight the second time.” 

“No, but you purposely didn’t open the door and called him a control-freak, possessive bastard. And all these happened with forty-eight hours?” 

“Yes. Now, if you are done with your fun, can you please change the topic?”

She grinned like a satisfied tabby cat and shook her head. “Oh, no, no, no. I am just getting started here. Monkeys can’t even make and break and relationship that fast, let alone have sex in between.” 

“Marco is the last thing I want to talk about right now.” I scowled. It was bad enough I fought with him that I have agonizingly remembered everything about him now. 

“Aw! You are not going to break my heart, bitch, so stop acting all weird and get me the dirty details.” Sammy rubbed her hands together excitingly. 

I gave her a crooked smile. “Good to know that you have a heart.” 

“Of course, I do.” She rolled her eyes and flicked her hair behind her shoulder. “How else do I cook up those fake emotions? Do you really think I pull them out of my ass? Even it’s a very round, very tight ass—

“Christ! Stop! My ears are burning now!” It was Dominic’s voice from the doorway. He frowned at us as he strolled in and jumped onto the bed. 

Sammy gave him a hard smack on his shoulder. “This is why you should never sneak up on two women who are gossiping. Our minds are dirty, and our secrets dirtier.” She winked at me.

“Good. I will try to remember the next time,” he told her and then grinned at me suggestively. Ugh. “So, you and Marco got it good, huh? Broke the bed?”

I almost gasped but snapped my mouth shut. “Viktor spilled it?” 

“Viktor knows?” They gasped together. 

Puzzled, I looked between them. “How else did you...?”

Dominic didn’t even let me finish. “Sammy told me.” He smiled, no, grinned from ear to ear, with his white set of teeth flashing brightly.

“I told her just now...oh, my god, you bitch!” I glared at Sammy when I realized what she was doing with the phone in her hand. “You have texted him!” 

“Literally the very next second,” Dominic added, high-fiving her. Jerk!

I wanted to kill them both. “This family has absolutely no boundaries at all,” I muttered. 

“C’mon! My money was on stake. I had to. No hard feelings, babe.” 

“You bet on my...my...” I was so angry and embarrassed that I could hardly talk.

“Virginity? Yes.” Sammy bobbed her head. “We did, and I won fair and square,” she said with pride as if she had won some Nobel. 

Change of plans, actually. Now I wanted the earth to open up so I could kick both these fuckers into the hole and bury them alive. 

“I need new friends.” I shot her daggers.

“Aw! You are going to break up with me, babe?”

“No. I am going to kill you,” I snarled before turning my head. “By the way, Dominic, do you remember the time you had a funny smell in your new Ferrari? And we convinced you that it was some chemical in the paint?” I watched his smile die on his face, and a look of horror clouded took over. “Well, it was your sister. And, by the way, we did take it out for a fun test drive when you were busy banging that blond cocktail waitress.” 

This time, I grinned so wide that my jaws were hurting. But, boy, it felt good. So fucking good.

“Et tu, Brute?” Sammy pouted.

Dominic narrowed his eyes and dazedly whispered, “Oh, fuck. I had to wash that car thrice to get rid of the smell...”

I was out of there before he could finish his sentence. But given the blood-curling shrieks and angry growls, I knew I did a fine-fucking job there. 

The last time I felt my calf muscles straining this bad was when Marco made me do a hundred squats as a penalty for something stupid I had done. And here I was now, kneeling in his bedroom, and hoping to god what I read on the internet was correct.

When I drove back home from Sammy’s, the house was empty. The rooms looked spick and span, meaning the servants did their jobs and left. Since Marco loved his privacy, Della, as the head-house keeper, made sure that no domestic help would swarm around the place in his presence. 

I called Marco a dozen times but it ended in voicemail. I knew he read the texts, but didn’t reply. The heavy bricks of regret were suffocating me. But more than that was his condescending silence. 

Marco was as calm and poised as I was restless and impulsive. We were as c as day and night. But we also completed each other in a way that was utterly magical. 

I knew where my monotonous words would fail; my action might do some good.

The click of the door snapped me out of my mind and my spine straightened instantaneously. Since my back was facing the entrance, I entirely relied on my hearing ability for the clues.

The door opened, followed by the slap of his shoes against the floor tiles before the sound stopped. Marco wasn’t definitely expecting me here, in his bedroom, and least of all, knelt on the floor.

But he didn’t say a damn word even though I could sense his bewilderment—forever the calculating man that I have known him for. 

The silence grew sharper and deadly, racing my heartbeats. For a brief second, I considered looking over my shoulder and giving in to the temptation. 

Wouldn’t it defeat the purpose entirely then? 

Fuck. I didn’t know if I was emotionally that strong to survive this tense standoff between us. 

The palpitations were about to go into overdrive before I finally heard the footsteps approaching. He stopped less than a meter away from my stance, but it was enough to make me aware of his heat. 

Badly, as badly as I needed to breathe, I wanted to crash against his powerful chest and bury my head into the crook of his neck. 

For all my strength and power I had honed over the passage of time, my heart was still hopelessly weak for him—for I had called my master. It was fitting term actually because no one owned me entirely as much as him. 

Marco came over and seated himself on the bed with his elbows resting over the widened knees. “What are you doing?” The voice was dispassionate and taciturn, slashing against already-bleeding heart.

Hesitantly, I turned to look at him. “I wanted to apologize to you. I just didn’t know how,” I replied softly, putting everything on stake.

I watched that perfectly cut jaw set hard as his narrowed, stormy eyes roamed over me. Studying me. “And you thought that kneeling in my bedroom would work?” came the cool, detached question. 

“I don’t know much about BDSM, but from what I have seen and read, this is one of the ways. Am I right?” I dared.

The small dismissive shake of his head was the last nail on the coffin. “Get up and sit on the bed,” he ordered, patting the mattress to his left. “I enjoy submission only when I want to dominate and at my pleasure, and most definitely at the whim and cry of a submissive.” 

“And what happens when I want to submit willingly?” I countered.

It took less than a second for the emotionless eyes to turn darker. In that moment, I didn’t know if my boldness was a boon or a curse. “Are you doing that right now? Or, are you trying to manipulate me, Aurora?”

My shoulders drooped in defeat. There was no winning with a man who was champion at this. “I am just trying to say sorry,” I muttered, before twisting my body ungracefully to get up from the floor. 

The cold yet charming devil offered his hand, and I took it without a thought, and then, arranged myself clumsily to take the place beside him. 

My eyes were fixed on the raw, reddened flesh on my abraded knees as I spoke. “I know you’re mad at me, and that’s understandable. I know that I should have let you say your side of the story before jumping the gun.” 

“There was no my side or yours,” he clipped. “It was our side and Viktor’s until you changed it.”

I looked directly into his eyes this time. “I just thought you were to trying to shield me. And there’s nothing wrong in it, but I really wanted the man to suffer at my hands.” 

“And that is why I trained you, Aurora. Not just that asshole, but every man who dares to underestimate your power and strength. Do you honestly believe I have any intention to turn you into a damsel in distress?” 

I watched Marco’s face settle feature by feature from rage to hurt. Truly, I was at a loss of words, for anything and everything I’d say couldn’t undo the outburst. 

I shook my head and tore away my gaze. “No,” I spoke softly. “Just know this...that I am sorry.”

I was about to get up and bolt, but Marco placed his palm over my bared knee. “I don’t expect you to agree with me on everything, but there should be room for discussion and negotiation. Or else, we can’t work like this.”

My head jerked up. Wait. Did he indicate... “Do you want out?” I blurted. 

Marco’s fingers squeezed my knee. “No, that’s not what I want,” he said confidently. “That’s most definitely not what I want.” 

It was surely a momentary relief. “I should give you some space. I know I shouldn’t push, but...”

Marco cut me off. “I don’t operate like that.” He didn’t sound furious but slightly irked. “Before that, let me ask you something: why didn’t you pay the bastard a visit even after I told you of his location?”

Instantly, my eyes shut tightly as if I was trying to close myself off. The truth was: I wanted to make the bastard pay as badly as anything, but not at the cost of Marco. How could I disregard the man who was fundamentally and elementally my world? 

“Why?” he demanded impatiently in a voice thickly laced in a dark timbre.

“Because you made who I am today.” I stared into his fiercely grey eyes. “I owe every ounce of strength and power and courage to you, and when I am going to use all those to destroy him to the inch of his life, I want you there beside me and be proud of me. Be proud of *your* *protégé*́.”

XXX

**I hope you guys have enjoyed reading the Chapter.**