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MARISELA

I sighed, pacing the length of the bedroom, my short black robe billowing behind me when I pivoted and started walking in the opposite direction.

This man was infuriating. Neurotic and egotistical. The kind of man who loved me as much as he loved the sound of his own voice. In his own way. And I guess I loved him in my own way too. At the very least I loved how he made me feel…

Good sex was the one thing I was willing to negotiate on while marriage was the one thing he wouldn’t let go. Dr. Lambert wanted a wife, a mother for his children, a partner for his madhouse. And I wanted…

Well, I wanted none of that.

Three days, three months, three years… it didn’t matter. Time wasn’t going to change my mind and it sure as hell had done nothing to change his. We were at a stalemate.

Which was exactly why I’d taken matters in to my own hands. Birth control pills could fail but a tubal ligation couldn’t—at the very least it wasn’t likely.

I ran a fingertip over the little scar and grinned to myself. The single-incision site ensured the surgery I underwent last year was barely perceptible, even to the trained eye. It also ensured my shadow man was shit out of luck if he thought he could trap me with his brat.

Fucker assumed he’d gotten me with the antibiotics.

As if my knowledge of pharmacology wasn’t better than his.

Yes, he had his prescription pad and his chemistry lab but I studied the compounds and mechanisms. I accumulated the raw data and I manipulated it to my advantage. Just like I needed to manipulate him.

And if I couldn’t do that, well, then both of us were fucked…

“I am not handing it over, Adrian. I don’t care if I have to hold a knife to each of their throats and force the vote. It’s my company.”

It shouldn’t have meant as much to me as it did.

It was just a building full of compounds and devices.

Office space occupied by people who came and went and employees whose names I didn’t care to know.

Still, each one of those contracts, every deal made in the last ten or so years had been my doing.

I might not have been there for its conception but Cruz Research & Development wasn’t any less the fruit of my labor. It wasn’t any less mine.

“I never said you had to, Marisela,” Adrian huffed from where he was standing and watching me make a pattern in the carpet.

“I never asked you to stop working. I said I wanted you to prefer being with me . Just because you prefer to stay in bed doesn’t mean you don’t get up and go to work in the morning.

Life is about doing the things you don’t want to do sometimes.

But it’s also about enjoying what you can.

I want to be that thing you enjoy, Marisela.

The thing you want to do more than anything else. It’s as simple as that.”

“Nothing is simple,” I was quick to remind him.

“You’re taking what you know to be true in one situation and applying it to others.

It’s called cognitive distortion,” he said in that condescending tone he liked to use whenever he was trying to convey that he was smarter than everyone else.

“Instead of listening to what I am telling you, you are twisting it into what you think it means.”

“Tate—” I started to say, only to be cut off.

“I am not him any more than you are her.”

“Her?” I pivoted around to glare at him, noting the way his eyes softened. His voice less clinical and more… placating. It irritated me just as much. I didn’t want to be placated. I wanted to be fucking heard.

“The woman you think you need to be to survive,” he clarified, and I resumed my pacing.

“I hate you.”

“I know. And I love you too,” he replied. I flicked my glare up to meet his smirk. “See? That’s exactly what you sound like.”

“Yeah, except you’re serious. ”

“I am.” He nodded. “But I’m also self-aware enough to recognize it.”

“Self-aware or delusional, Dr. Lambert? Because there really is a difference and plenty of medication if you need a referral.”

He shrugged a shoulder, his arms still crossed and his head cocked to the side.

“I enjoy my delusion, Marisela. I enjoy the idea of someone loving someone else so much there is no world where they aren’t together—it’s not a possibility.

Do you enjoy yours? Do you enjoy believing that being alone is so much better than being with a man who would get on his knees for you?

” As he said the words, he lowered himself onto the ground.

His elbow propped on one thigh and a velvet box in his hand.

“Because it sure as hell doesn’t seem like it. ”

I looked from his face to the ring staring back at me. “So you’re saying you’d rather be crazy together than alone and sane.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Good to know you’re finally listening, lamb.”