Page 140 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 10

Sunday

Penny stared at me with defiance. But she was in the wrong here too. She’d slept with the prick.

"What about him?" she asked calmly.

"You went to see him yesterday. What did you talk about?" If she thought I was going to let that tidbit of information go, she was dead wrong.

"I went to see him to tell him I wanted to be with you."

"After you read my letter?"

"No, before. I want to be with you. That's all that I want. But you're complicated. The situation is complicated. And I don't mean just because you're my professor. It's because you're still married. How can you sit there and talk about a future with me in this situation?"

"Because I know it's over.” Why wouldn’t she believe me? Why wouldn’t she trust my word? “I'll talk to her again."

"No." Penny pulled her feet off my lap and hugged her knees into her chest.

"I'm not going to sleep with her again.” I wasn’t even sure I had in the first place.

But I definitely wouldn’t again. Or have anything to drink around her.

But Penny didn’t seem to believe any of it.

And I had a feeling that Ian was watching us right now.

Listening and shaking his head. But I was already too deep into this mess to unwind it.

“Penny." I leaned forward and kissed her kneecap.

"I'm getting divorced. I've already signed the papers. "

"I know."

"So why are you still upset about it?"

"It makes me feel like a bad person. What if she never signs the papers?"

"I'll get her to sign them." I kissed her knee again. "I'm sorry about what happened. Please forgive me."

"I love you,” said Penny. “I love you so much. There's a million reasons why I should give you up. But I can't. I don't want to. And we were broken up. So there isn't anything to forgive."

"Penny, Penny, Penny." I leaned over her and placed a kiss against her lips. "I love you."

"I love you, too." Tears started to fall from her eyes. She pushed herself up into a seated position. "Stupid concussion." She forced a laugh as she wiped away her tears.

"Hey." I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. It seemed like something else was going on here. We’d already talked about all this shit with Isabella. I’d hoped we’d already moved past it. Was I missing something else here? "What's wrong?"

"If this really is love, then it won't matter if we wait."

Her words felt like a slap across my face. "Wait for what?"

"For your divorce to be final. For me to graduate. For things to be less complicated."

"Is this about Tyler? Or Brendan?"

"No. It has nothing to do with them."

I lowered my eyebrows as I stared down at her. Because it seemed like it had everything to do with them. And I was still itching to bang on everyone’s door in this apartment complex looking for Brendan.

"I thought you didn't want me,” she said. “I was a mess. I was trying to get over you. But I don't want either of them. I felt so empty when you stopped talking to me. I just didn't want to feel empty anymore."

Her words hung in the air for a long time, settling around me. I got that. I did. And it was my fault because I’d wanted her to move on. I’d stayed away. This was on me. And if I wanted her to forgive me for whatever the fuck happened with Isabella, I needed to forgive her too.

"I felt empty too,” I said.

We were silent again as we looked into each other's eyes.

"I choose you,” she finally said. “I just want to wait till it's right."

I looked down at her legs and traced a circle around the inside of her knee.

I tried to think of the right words to say.

Words that wouldn’t make her angry. Wouldn’t make her cry.

And wouldn’t make her push me away again.

“Penny, I've spent my whole life doing things I didn't want to.

I don't want to wait anymore. You make me happy. To me, that's all that matters."

"Am I not worth waiting for?"

"That's not what I meant. Of course you're worth waiting for." I grabbed her hand and rubbed my thumb against her palm. "But I feel like I've been waiting my whole life already. You're young. I get that." I sighed. "But two years is a long time. I don't want to wait anymore."

"Then we can just wait until your divorce is final. What's the point of being together if we can't fully commit to one another?"

"I am committed to you. I've told you I love you. I don't take that lightly."

"But our relationship is a secret and you still have a wife. How happy do you think we can be for the next two years like this?"

What did she want from me here? Was she asking me to throw my career away? Was that the only thing that would show her that I was serious about us? "What if I disclose our relationship to the dean?"

She stared at me. "What?"

"Is that what you want? Will that prove to you how I feel? We won't have to hide our relationship anymore."

"We'll get in trouble."

"Not necessarily. Only if someone complains."

She pressed her lips together. "What about Comm?"

"I'm not sure what will happen with that."

"I don't want to have to take it again."

I swallowed hard. Now that we were having this conversation, it didn’t seem that hard.

I felt empty without her, just like how she felt without me.

I wasn’t sure I’d feel empty without teaching.

Maybe I would. But the alternative of having to be without her for two years was worse.

I knew that. I took a deep breath. "So how about I quit? "

"Teaching?"

"If it's the only way."

"I thought you loved teaching. It's your fresh start."

" You're my fresh start. And I don't love teaching nearly as much as I love you." It was the truth. If I had to give one of them up, it wouldn’t be her.

She straddled me on the couch.

My hands settled on her waist as she leaned forward and hugged me.

"I don't want any of that,” she said.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Because even though my mind told me it would be okay to give up teaching, I worried. I knew what kind of man I was before I changed professions. What if…what if I slipped again? What if I lost teaching and her?

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I just want your divorce to be official. I don't want you to have to change who you are. I love who you are." She put her forehead against mine. "I don't want to wait. I just don't want to have to feel guilty about not waiting."

"There's nothing to feel guilty about. But I'll have my lawyer figure something out, okay? I'll take care of it." This shit with Isabella ended now.

"Soon?"

"Soon."

***

"Favorite soda?" I asked.

"Cherry Coke."

It was my lucky day. "I had my fridge stocked with a bunch of things when I thought you'd be staying here more often." I pulled out a Cherry Coke and handed it to her.

She grabbed the fridge handle before I closed it. "Let me see." Her eyes wandered the shelves and she grabbed a pack of juice boxes. "Juice boxes? Seriously? How young do you think I am?"

Shit. "Those are actually mine." I grabbed them from her, put them back in the fridge, and closed the door.

"Why don't you just buy a bottle of apple juice if you like it so much?"

I tried to think of something to say. I pressed my lips together. I wasn’t sure why my first instinct was to lie. We were trying to get to know each other here. Breathe. "I was never allowed to have them when I was a kid." There. The truth wasn’t so hard.

But I didn’t recognize the way she was staring at me.

I shrugged, trying to play it off.

"Okay,” she said and handed the soda back to me. "I actually want one of those."

"You do?"

"Yes, please."

I smiled and opened the fridge back up for her. She grabbed the juice boxes while I grabbed the plates. We sat down at the kitchen counter and I watched her take a huge bite of pizza. It was only a matter of seconds before her first slice was gone.

I knew I was staring, but I couldn’t seem to stop. She was ravenous. And I was pretty sure that’s exactly how I felt about her. "I'm glad to see that you've gotten your appetite back."

"That's what your love does for me."

I smiled and took a bite. "This is pretty delicious."

"I told you." She put her lips seductively around the straw of her juice box and took a sip.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t purposely being seductive. But whenever she wrapped her lips around anything all I could picture was them wrapped around my cock.

“Why is everything so much better with a straw?" she asked.

"I don't know, but it really is." I took a sip from my juice box too.

And she immediately started laughing.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"It's just...you look like a model and you're drinking from a juice box. It's like, the sexiest apple juice ad ever."

"Marketing at its finest?"

"Absolutely."

I laughed. I wanted to keep making her smile. "What do you want to do with our day off tomorrow?"

"It's not really a day off. I'm supposed to just recuperate, right?"

"We're both ditching class. So it's kind of a day off. We can do whatever you want."

"I think I'd like to see what a normal day is like for you. The behind the professor's facade special."

"You do like to watch a lot of T.V., huh?"

"I don't think I watch an unusual amount. You're the weird one. Who doesn't have a T.V.?"

I shrugged. "Sometimes I watch stuff on my computer. Speaking of which, I need to send out that email about canceling class.” And one other thing. “I'll be right back."

"It really is okay if you need to go to class."

"I don't need to." I kissed her and slid off my stool. I walked into my office and called Ian as I booted up my computer.

“What’s up?” he said.

“I need your help with something.” I started typing out emails to cancel my classes.

There was a long pause. “Are you going to tell me what this something is?”

I stopped typing. I was assuming Isabella had snapped a few photos of me when I blacked out. Incriminating photos she’d use for…something. I didn’t really know her plan here. It seemed like she just didn’t want to get divorced. And that wasn’t up for negotiation.