HIS DOE, HIS DAMNATION (An Erotic Billionaire Romance) novel Chapter 75

Meadow’s POV:

The water was quiet enough for me to hear my own thoughts. Unfortunately.

I pushed off the wall and let the pool swallow me, the weight of the water pressing against my body from all sides. I used to be scared of pools once, scared to the point where I avoided bathtubs like the plague.

My sister pushed me into our pool when we were eight years old. I couldn’t swim. All Juniper did was watch me flail while she stood over me, giggling. I would’ve drowned had the housekeeper not heard the splashing and the gurgling sounds.

When my mother found out about it, she was furious. Not at Juniper for pushing me, but at the housekeeper for saving me. She fired her.

“You should’ve let her fucking drown!” She wasn’t even discreet about it. My mother never hid the fact that she hated me.

And Juniper hated me because my mother made sure she did.

The knowledge that someone could watch me drown and do nothing terrified me. So I avoided large waterbodies, until Nova made me face it years later. She taught me to swim in our senior year of high school, and I forced myself to face my fears.

No one could drown me if I knew how to swim.

I found this place nights ago when I was snooping around. And when I asked Mel, she said Alaric barely ever used it so it was easy to forget it existed. And all of a sudden, it became my favorite place to be.

Because the pool and I were kindred spirits.

Alaric forgot both of us existed.

I pushed to the surface, panting as I slicked my wet hair back. The entire point of coming here was to take my mind off him, but somehow, he had already managed to infiltrate my thoughts.

And apparently–my space.

I sensed him before I heard him.

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed to go see Nova?”

I turned to see him standing at the edge of the pool, his hands in his pockets and an expression I couldn’t read on his face as he watched me with narrowed eyes.

My stomach twisted, heat and fury mixing together. “For whatever reasons you didn’t tell me you let my sister out of the facility,” I snapped, swimming toward the ladder by his feet.

Alaric hummed. “So… to protect me?”

“Classic,” I scoffed. “You didn’t tell me my sister was out to protect me?” My hands reached for the ladder and I slowly began to climb out. “Here’s a tip, Alaric. If you’re going to give some flimsy excuse, try something original.”

Alaric’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t say a word. He just didn’t take his eyes off me as I got out of the pool. My skin prickled with heat despite the coolness of the water. Maybe it was my anxiety. Or maybe it was the fact that Alaric’s gaze was full of heat as he watched me.

“Besides, men like you don’t need an excuse to do what they want to do, right? They just do it.”

I stumbled on the last step, and I probably would’ve been able to catch myself with the railing, but Alaric’s quick hand reaching for me didn’t let me find out.

He pulled me flush against his chest and I gasped as his body warmth enveloped me. “Careful,” he murmured as his eyes dropped to my breasts. I had on a blue bikini set.

Definitely not an intentional move.

I liked the way he was looking at me so much that I nearly forgot that I was supposed to be mad at him. I pushed away from his chest, stepping away from him. “Leave me alone, Alaric. I don’t want you here.”

I started to turn around and reach for a towel but he pulled me back to him again, and this time, my back was flush against his chest.

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