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Adele shrugged her shoulders.
“Open your mouth, Adele. You’re a grown ass woman.”
“I don’t know Harvey, okay. I don’t fucking know.”
“Then why cause all of this commotion for some shit you don’t know.”
“I don’t want to lose you as my friend.”
“Have you ever?”
“No. But things may change. What if this new girl doesn’t feel comfortable with our friendship.”
“Why wouldn’t she be? I haven’t touched you in years. There is nothing between us but business.”
“What if I want to try again?”
“You don’t,” I exhaled. “She’s good for me. I can see myself truly being happy with her and as myfriendI expect you to be okay with that. I’ve had to sit back and watch you run around the world with your boy toy. Why deny me of the same happiness, Adele?”
“I don’t love him.”
“You sure as hell don’t love me. I opened myself up to you. I was willing to give you everything. Ready to defendusto the world. Adele,youwalked out on that. It was you who decidedthat you weren’t ready for anything serious. You wanted to be friends and now that I’ve found someone that I can see myself settling down with, it’s a problem.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yeah. I kind of do,” I admitted.
“Shit Harvey!” she groaned. “I’ve really lost you.”
“Adele, my love. You lost me when you denied me of your heart.”
Squaring her shoulders, she wiped the corner of her eyes. “I won’t stand in the way of business again. I’m sorry Law.”
“You don’t owe me any apologies, Adele.”
“No, I do. I toyed with your heart and somewhere in my head I thought you’d always be there. I figured I could date around and when I got tired and was ready to settle down, I would do it with you. Had I known that it would push you away, I wouldn’t have made that move to begin with. I would have accepted what you were offering.”
“You weren’t ready, and I understand that now. It was wrong of me to try and force something on you. You’re my oldest and closest friend, Adele. The love I feel for you extends far beyond words. Me being in a relationship doesn’t change anything between us.”
“It does,” she mumbled.
“Only if you allow it.”
“I really am sorry for the way I ended things, Harvey.”
“It’s in the past.” Rising from chair, I extended my hand out toward her. After a few seconds, she placed hers inside of mine. “I love you immensely and that’ll never change. We had our run, and it was fun while it lasted. Doesn’t mean I love you any less.”
“I know,” she declared.
Pulling her into my chest, I held onto her for as long as I could. When I pulled back, I kissed her on the forehead. “Stop giving my guys a hard time. They’ve got a job to do.”
“I will.” She laughed.
“We good?” I asked to make sure. I didn’t need anything like this to happen again. My reason for stepping back was so I could pursue other things. The end goal was to hand everything over to Preme and Drix, so I needed the three of them to stay on one accord. Another slip up like this would have me abandoning business with Adele permanently, and because of our history I didn’t want it to result in that.
“We’re good.”
“Excellent. I’ve gotta jet. I left her in bed alone and if she wakes up before I make it back, I’ll never hear the end of it.”