Chapter 38: Chapter 38

“What?”

His suggestion caught me off guard that for a second I didn’t realize that it was in fact a valid suggestion.

Andre turned a questioning gaze at me and realized that I misunderstood his suggestion. He snorted.

“I am not trying to get you naked for sex, Bianca, so relax. If I wanted to do that I would have set up a romantic dinner date and seduced you like a gentleman.”

My laughter bubbled out of me. I laughed so hard that I started to snort.

“What’s so funny?” He queried.

“You duh! You would set up a romantic dinner date without being crude about it? So what's your pick-up line? Wanna see my lines?”

His face turned red with embarrassment and he laughed. “Oh my God, I will never live this one down!”

“Never! I can’t believe you said that to me," I started to smile.

“Well, what else was I supposed to say? You were mad at me for fixing your bikini and I was enjoying our banter.”

It felt good to laugh with him especially before he moved over and our dislike for each other surfaced…well, I was the one to dislike him first. Why? I can’t even remember anymore.

I noticed he was giving me that look again. My laughter faded and I looked away. There we were in his living room – the last time I was here he pushed me against the door to kiss me. Yet here I was avoiding his gaze.

“Bianca…”

His words suddenly caught off and I felt the coolness of his touch on my wrist. I looked. He was staring at the bruises on my bound wrists with a frown on his face. He looked up at me, his eyes soft and full of remorse.

“I did this to you?”

I nodded. “But I didn’t do any better either, I bet your wrist hurts too.” I tried to laugh. His wrist looked fine, a bit reddened but no broken skin or anything. Yet mine had a few open wounds.

Andre didn’t laugh. He came closer still touching my wrist. “I am so sorry, Bianca. I haven’t been my best toward you. I never seem to know how to treat you better than I have done since that day at the beach. I understand if you can’t forgive me, first I got you in trouble and now I made your wrist bleed this way.”

“It’s…”

“It’s not fine,” his voice was firm. He towered above me, his fingers caressing my bruises with the softest touches. His cool breath fell on the stinging flesh. “I’m sorry. I've been a fucking asshole and I promise this is not really how I am. I am not always like this you must believe me. The real Andre Rios is not this cruel and annoying as I have been.”

I scoffed. “I find that hard to believe,” I said in an effort to take the edge off the tension slowly building.

He didn’t scoff, he didn’t laugh. Instead, his eyes caught mine and the look in them scorched me. I couldn’t move away from their magnetic hold, they drew me, begging me to believe him, to give him a chance…a chance at what?

“Bianca…”

I snapped out of it and cleared my throat. “Andre I accept your apology. You are not the only one at fault here. Even I have not been my best and I promise you I am not usually like this but something about you just…” I realized I was getting too close to my hidden feelings and caught myself before exposing my thoughts to him. I looked at him. “Let’s just get all of these behind us, okay? I’m sure Mr. Holden would be pleased to see how much improvement we’ve made in just one day.” I stared up at him, my eyes pleading, “Can we put this behind us?”

His gaze dropped to my lips. I fought the urge to lick them. Just when I thought he was going to throw caution to the wind and push me against the wall again to kiss me like he did the last time, he looked away and nodded. “You are right. Let’s put this behind us. This time let’s start all over again and be honest with each other, let’s be nice to each other.”

I nodded my agreement.

“Let’s be honest with each other,” he repeated watching me closely.

I knew what he was talking about. My heart broke. How can I be honest with myself? My honesty will hurt not just me but Aaron and worst of all Siobhan. How do I tell her I love to kiss her boyfriend? How do I let her and Aaron know that I have feelings for Andre? How do I confess to Aaron that kissing him makes me think of Andre?

No! I can’t do this! I can’t hurt my best friend because of my stupid feelings.

“No,” I said to Andre. “Let’s be honest to our partners instead. No more lies, no more kisses, we can’t be alone for too long anymore because it’s obvious we can’t keep our hands off each other. Let today be the last time we ever get to be alone together.” My voice turned pleading, I hoped he understood, “For our friends’ sakes?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. I thought he was going to argue but he nodded reluctantly and I released a sigh of relief. “For our friends’ sakes.”

He looked away and I reached out to touch him but stopped myself when his hard gaze dropped to my hand. I drew my hand back and offered a small smile.

“Thank you, Andre.”

“Anything for you.”

That sounded too much like a promise, exactly like his declaration when Siobhan playfully warned him not to hurt me. It made me uncomfortable that he was so obvious with his feelings yet here I was like a coward hiding from them and asking him to do the same.

I cleared my throat. I am not a coward, I reminded myself. This is the best thing to do. I’ll remind myself of that as long as I want until I believe it. Andre and Siobhan belong together. He is rich, so is she. He is handsome and hot. So is she. They belong to each other. That’s the law. I can never have anything so good. Aaron is right for me. He wants me. I like him but if I convince myself well enough I will love him.

“Let’s go to bed then.”

We took off our uniform bottoms and went to his room where we slid beneath his sheets.

But I couldn’t sleep. Not when the boy I wanted so badly, the boy my body craved so much was sleeping on the same bed with me his body turned slightly to face the other side. I doubt he could sleep too but neither of us said anything to the other. We just pretended to sleep.

Maybe because I couldn’t sleep or maybe I must have drifted off at some point during the night but somehow, at some point during the night my eyes fluttered open and through the thin walls I heard movements. A door opening, the muffled creak, the sounds of people talking…or maybe it was all in my head.

I glanced at Andre. He was either asleep or pretending to be sleeping. Taking a deep breath I did the same; closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.