The stag hunt with the scarlet heart

Chapter 30 "Life is a battlefield, and we all end up fighting"

Serendipity. Callum said it knowingly to make me feel less responsible, it was more of a romantic gesture. Atlas said it in one of his poetic, foolish outbursts to make me laugh, he was wrong. Our love was so many things, it was never unexpected or a discovery for that matter, our love is unfading, it is pure and perennial, but it will never be serendipity. That is really sad.

Sometimes I wish life was a book and be able to take a look at the last few pages just to make sure it all ends well. I don't have to talk to the Saffron of the future to know that it won't.

I woke up with a tightness in my chest. I needed Ryan to take the edge off with a joke, but he was half dead on the couch and I didn't want to wake him up. I went to talk to Autumn, she was asleep on top of James, and that didn't help. So I mentally punished myself the whole way to work.

And here we are, in the conference room, finishing a meeting about the magazine, you could have threatened me and for the life of me I can't remember what was said, my eyes were just on Callum and my mind was trying to accept the fact that I'm in a relationship with him. That he had left his girlfriend, but I couldn't let go of Atlas.

"Saffron, could you stay? I need to check some documents." He orders as everyone walks out of the room, but eyes keep darting back and forth between the two of us. They always have since the photo shoot.

I sit next to him and he holds the computer out to me as he watches in frustration as people leave. Like they're not going fast enough.

"What's wrong, Callum? You're not even looking at the document." I ask, amused and he flutters his eyes in my direction. "Oh my God, stop hanging out with Ryan."

At that moment Leyla walks in and I wanna laugh at the look of massive frustration he gives me. When Leyla sits down next to him, he goes right back to work, but I do what I can, considering that he touches my breasts with his arm several times when he points to something on the screen, he does it on purpose, like brushing my inner thighs and then pulling his hand away.

I'm torn between annoyance and arousal. That's too freaking bad. But there's amusement in his eyes, and that's so much better than seeing the guilt darkening the blueness in them.

"Leyla, I need you to get the budget and the new author's contract." He says with a smile as he pinches my thigh. I try not to jump. Two can play this game.

"I'm on it, oh... Your father wants you to call him to find out if you're going to the charity gala together." Callum says he'll call him back and the blonde looks at me. "Saffron, Simone told me to tell you that Darius Walker wants to know if he can pick you up."

"Thank you, Leyla."

I wait for Leyla to leave and I move my face close to his face, I can hardly wait to kiss him.

"What do you mean, Darius will pick you up? I won't let him, the son of a bitch!" I smile at his angry tone.

"I don't know." I raise one of my shoulders and his eyes travel down my collarbone, to my lips, and then to my eyes. I don't know what's in mine, but his eyes are flaming with pure jealousy.

"You're going to say no, aren't you?"

"I don't know, are you jealous?" I don't know why the thought makes me smile.

"Hell yes, damn it." He says, looking at me as if I had lost my mind. "You're mine, Albertine."

I can't stop staring at his lips, there's a groove in the lower lip and a small line that divides the lip. It makes it more voluminous, but now my eyes go to his upper lip, a few hairs of his beard brush against it. Doesn't that make him itch?