FRAGILE: A Billionaire Romance (Part Two) Read Online Free PDF

head downstairs, walking beside each other without touching. Eli at least has the decency to wait while I get my coat on, and Lee bids us a good evening when Eli and I head outside.
    There’s a slight nip in the air, the sun having set, and I shiver as I clutch my coat closer to me. I wonder if Eli’s going to have a cab take me home, but he escorts me to the limo, which has pulled up when we walk out. We’re quiet on our drive back, and I look at everything except Eli. Eventually Eli leans over and turns the dance music off, and I close my eyes at the pain of the silence.
    I want to say something, but I don’t know what to say. I finally find love, but I find it in a man that doesn’t want to be close to anyone. What do I even do? What do I say? I stare at my hands as the limo drives on, wondering if I should argue with Eli that I can do it, that I can stay in the “lover zone” with Eli, and persuade him.
    Before I can parse through all of my thoughts and emotions, the limo stops and the driver opens the door. Eli steps out and helps me outside. His touch is distant and polite, nothing more.
    “Have a good evening, Miss Jennings,” Eli says.
    That he’s switched to calling me by my last name hurts me, deeply. “Please, Eli,” I say. I want to say more, but Eli’s already gone, slipping into the limo. The door shuts, and the limo drives away.
    Now that I’m away from Eli, I’m aware of how lonely and rejected I feel, and I fight the urge to sob in public, as I make my way back to my penthouse. Once I close my door, I manage to get some headache relief pills into me before I lean against the counter, put a hand over my face, and weep like a heartbroken little school girl.
    How could one man turn my world so inside out? I hadn’t meant to feel so strongly about Eli, but I had, and in one admission, I’d ruined even the possibility of remaining as his lover.
    On the other hand, I feel immensely frustrated that Eli felt the need to be so cold and distant from me, even as “just a lover,” and eventually, I throw a pillow from my couch at the wall.
    “That damn…hot….” I swear a bit more, throwing more pillows.
    I don’t like to cry, and oftentimes I try to overcome tears with anger. This is one of those moments, as I pace back and forth in my penthouse.
    “Why do I like such a cold-hearted man?” I ask the empty air. “Why Eli? Why couldn’t it have been someone else that at least would be okay with being lovers? And why did I have to open my damn mouth and confess to feelings that I only think are true?!”
    When I don’t receive an answer, I collapse onto my messed up couch, twisting my hair strands around with my hands. That’s when I realize that Buttercup hasn’t come out. I lift my head, wiping my moist eyes with my sleeve, and look around.
    “Buttercup?” I call.
    My cat’s never not greeted me before, and I have an ill feeling as I go over to her bed, which is tucked in a corner of my room. Buttercup’s lying on the bedding on her side, and I crouch down and touch her. She’s cold, stiff, and unmoving. She’s dead.
    “Shit,” I say. Tears pour down my face, as I start to pick her up, and then my hands shake so bad I set her down, the feel of her dead body unnatural to me. “Shit, no.”
    I lean against a wall nearby, sobbing. I pick up my phone to call my mom, but my shaking finger slips and the selection rests on Eli’s number. I’d put it in my phone, hoping that he’d call. I don’t know what I’m thinking, but I click the call button and hold the phone to my ear. It just rings and rings before going to a voicemail that isn’t even personalized; it’s just a generic automated message. I hang up.
    I don’t want to be in my penthouse. Not with a dead cat. I grab my clutch and rush out of the penthouse, barely remembering to lock my front door. And then I call a cab to Eli’s apartment complex.
    I can’t think right, but all I want right now is to save something. I