Obsession (Magnetic Desires Book 4) Read Online Free

hadn’t had in so long.
    It was such a small world. I’d only thought of what it would mean for Mellie to have family, not expecting Lola to be married to one of our friends, and once they’d gotten their issues sorted, it was inevitable she and Tia would go home with Leo. Unable to stand the damn quiet, I raced up the stairs to get changed for a run.
    Three years, seven months, twenty-three days, thirteen hours and ten minutes. Hell I may as well have declared myself celibate. Only now, I’d put the thought into my head, it was lodged there, and no amount of tapping my temple was going to remove it. I slipped back down the stairs and out the door, immediately breaking into a jog. My second run for the day, a supplement to my normal morning routine. Usually, I’d work. I’d set myself up in my office and pour over orders and floor plans. But the ticking in my head drowned out rational thought and left a static charge under my skin.
    Three years, seven months, twenty-three days, thirteen hours, and forty minutes. And the reason I knew this, the reason I could remember the event down to the minute, wasn’t because the sex had been fanfuckingtastic. Although it always had been with Mellie. No, it was the appointment after it. The appointment exactly one hour after that last fuck had changed my life.
    Lengthening my stride, I pushed harder, needing to wear myself out, and knowing that even if I kicked my own ass it wouldn’t help me sleep. Cancer. That’s what the doctor had said. You have cancer. Then something about surgery and treatment. Also maybe, there might have been something about mortality rates, life expectancy, how bad the cancer actually was. We need to form a course of action. Speak to your family. Come back in tomorrow.
    Honestly, after, “ You have cancer ,” I’m not sure what I heard. The doctor could have been inviting me back to his house to have an orgy for all I knew. Suddenly I was drowning, but not in water, not the way most drownings happened. No, this had been quicksand and hot wax filling my ears, turning my mind to sludge and seeping through the pores in my skin. Pulse hammering so hard I could feel it in my fingers even when every other part of me felt like it was carved from ice. The doctor’s mouth had opened and shut, his gaze on mine, trying to communicate, but it was only a blur of pictures, the sound on mute. When I’d finally managed to lever myself out of the chair, my limbs shaking and heavy, I hadn’t gone home to share the goddamn news. No, I’d gone back to work.
    Cancer. Even with it all behind me, would I ever forget the first time I heard that?
    Breathing heavily, I slowed to a jog and checked my Fitbit. Five miles. Not bad. The five back should be enough to keep me from doing something stupid, like finding Mellie and convincing her to take me up on my offer.
    I used to be the guy who believed if he wanted something he could take it. It hadn’t been that far-fetched. After I’d made my first million it had been damn near factual. Hell, coming from nothing, I’d had this image in my head of what would make my life perfect. I’d held onto that vision, grabbed it with both hands and worked my ass off to make it happen.
    And it had happened. I’d exceeded my goal and then I’d met Mellie. The first time I saw her wearing nothing but one of Orion’s shirts, I’d had a new vision. A new goal. That girl was meant to be mine and I knew exactly how to get what I wanted. Funny how cancer had changed that. The world I’d built dropped away like shifting sand beneath my feet, and the only thing I could grab onto was fear. Money meant nothing in the scheme of things, but her… she’d been the one thing I should have had the strength to hold onto.
    Well, that was then, and this was now, and she was done with me. So why hold on to that vision any longer? After a quick shower and change of clothes, I headed out to the one place I was certain I wouldn’t run into Mellie. 
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