Love's Redemption (Chris and Maddie) novel Chapter 172

Chapter 172 

“It’s me!” A familiar voice echoed in the hallway. 

I swiftly held onto the railing and stopped. My tense body could finally relax. 

Soon, I turned around and headed upstairs, where I saw Brandon standing in the dark. Our previous interaction left things awkward, and I didn’t know what to say. Still, I was genuinely shocked by the incident earlier, so I pretended to be angry. “You scared the heck out of me!” 

He simply grunted again. I never knew how to respond to that because that response was so cold. 

I was about to say more when he added softly, “I won’t do it again.” 

This time, I was at a total loss for words. 

Thus, I fished out my key and went to unlock my door. Just as I inserted the key into the keyhole, his low and deep voice rang again. “I overstepped my boundaries tonight. I won’t do it again in the future.” 

Huh? 

Stunned, I turned around, only to see he had entered through the half–open door. He glanced at me as he closed the door. “Goodnight.” 

I wanted to say something, but the words stuck in my throat only came out after he shut his door. “What do you mean by “in the future“?” 

I knew what he meant, though. He didn’t want to end our fake relationship. 

But I truly didn’t want to continue our arrangement; in fact, I was afraid to do so. 

I even regretted choosing Brandon to be my pretend boyfriend, not out of fear that he would not leave me alone, but out of fear of hurting him. 

I felt like a jerk for taking advantage of a man who had never had a real girlfriend and stealing all his supposedly wonderful first experiences in a relationship. 

I cursed myself as I entered rty home feeling utterly remorseful. I couldn’t sleep well the whole night. In my dreams, Brandon followed me around like a weakling and complained, “Why did you kiss me? That was my first kiss!” 

Waking up from the nightmare of utter guilt, I rose to see that the sky was still dark. It was early in the morning. I checked the time, and it was 4:30 am. 

Brandon should be awake by this hour, and if I was right, he should be out on a jog now. In other words, it was the perfect time to avoid him. 

As such, I swiftly went to wash up, change clothes, and left. When my car drove into the morning light, I pitied myself for living like a thief in my own home. 

To avoid Brandon, I left home early and returned late, skilfully killing any chances of running into him. However, the cold breakfast left at my doorstep only deepened my sense of guilt when I returned home every night. 

I had tried to text him not to do so a couple of times, but when the worry of him striking–up more conversations about it arose, I decided to ignore it completely. He should be able to understand my stance if he saw the untouched breakfast. 

To my expectation, no breakfast was hanging on my doorknob after my third day of returning from work, I breathed a sigh of relief, but deep down, I was rather disappointed