Do You Still Love Me When We Meet Again? (Aubrey and Damon) novel Chapter 74

Chapter 74

Damon pulled out his phone to check the time. “It’s not that late,” he said. “Barely ten o’clock.”

Aubrey slowly clenched her fists, a sudden weight settling in her chest.

Was he pretending not to get the hint?

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This was a clear dismissal, and he still had the nerve to linger?

Damon leaned back into the sofa, settling in with a casual ease. He looked up, his eyes meeting hers. “I’m a little tired. I’ll just sit here for a bit. Go do your thing. Don’t worry about me.”

This isn’t okay, Damon,” Aubrey said, a flicker of unease stirring within her, her tone sharp with impatience. “You really should go home.”

The last time Veronica had slapped her, Aubrey had gotten a hefty compensation, but it was clear Damon’s fiancée was not to be trifled with.

Damon pressed a hand to his chest, his brows furrowed, a pained expression on his face. “I walked too fast just now. My heart feels a bit off. Can I just rest for a bit?”

He wasn’t an actor, and his movements, his voice, held a theatricality that was utterly transparent, completely fake.

Aubrey sighed in exasperation.

One time would lead to another. She absolutely couldn’t give in so easily. “You’re just preten-”

Before she could even finish, her phone, sitting on the table, rang.

Damon caught a glimpse of the caller ID on the screen: “Alex.” That name instantly made his perfectly healthy heart feel incredibly uneasy, a suffocating tightness in his chest.

Aubrey picked up her phone, answered it, bringing it to her ear, and turned to walk toward her room. “Hey, Alex.”

That was the name Alex had insisted on.

They’d met that afternoon to discuss the case details. He hadn’t been pleased with “Mr. Foster,” insisting she call him Alex or he’d terminate their agreement. It was a client’s demand, one Aubrey had learned to navigate.

It was a one–hundred–million–dollar commercial dispute, and the five percent lawyer’s fee alone was five million dollars.

If she won, she’d get half the commission–a cool two and a half million dollars. How many of her colleagues were already green with envy, their eyes

fixed on her?

She was at a pivotal point in her career, striving for success. If one case could bring in two and a half million dollars, she’d call him anything he wanted, let alone Alex.

‘Aubrey, are you asleep?” Alex asked.

Aubrey walked into her room, closed the door, and sat on the edge of her bed. “If this is about business, I’m still up. If it’s personal, I’m about to go to sleep.”

Alex chuckled. “Okay, business it is.”

The living room fell silent.

Damon leaned back, exhaustion etched on his face. He closed his eyes, pressing a hand to his forehead, covering them, as if the weight of the world had just settled on his chest, leaving him breathless.

He knew Alex had pursued Aubrey back in college.

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If he hadn’t gotten to her first, Aubrey might have ended up with Alex.

He also knew that every girlfriend Alex had dated over the years was chosen to Aubrey’s specifications–their demeanor, their appearance, always bearing a distinct resemblance to her.

Alex calling her this late, and her addressing him so readily by his first name, suggested to Damon that their relationship was progressing at an alarming

pace.

Damon, too agitated to sit still, rose and walked out onto the balcony to get some air.

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An agonizing forty minutes later, Aubrey still hadn’t emerged from her room. His anxiety escalating, he came back inside from the balcony and walked to her bedroom door.

Just as he raised his hand to knock, Aubrey’s faint voice drifted out from inside. He froze.

Still on the phone.

Even back when they were dating, she’d never lingered on the phone with him for so long.

Aubrey was demure and understated, not the kind of woman who was clingy or overtly flirtatious. What on earth could she have been talking about with Alex for so long?

Damon’s fingers slowly tightened, clenching into a fist that he then brought down hard.

He closed his eyes, tilting his head back for a deep breath, willing the ache in his chest to subside. His steps were heavy, dragging as he turned, a desolate shadow, and walked away.

The door clicked shut, leaving the room to a heavy, aching solitude.

Alex kept rambling, using their case as a thinly veiled excuse to prolong their conversation. Aubrey, remembering he was her client, swallowed her rising impatience and let him.

An hour later, the call finally ended.

Aubrey emerged from the bedroom, phone still clutched in her hand, into an empty living room. Her gaze darted to the shoe cabinet, but his shoes weren’t there. A knot of dread tightened in her stomach. She rushed to the balcony, yanked open the glass door, and leaned over the railing, her eyes frantically scanning the ground below.

Downstairs, Damon was nowhere in sight.

Even the car that always parked below her building was gone.

Her heart tightened.

Was it a coincidence? Or had that car belonged to Damon all along?

If it was his, did that mean he’d been coming to her building every single night?

She turned and leaned against the railing, looking down at her phone. She opened her messaging app and brought up Damon’s chat screen.

Every single message had been cleared out long ago.

After their breakup a year ago, Damon blocked her, and she hadn’t messaged him on the app since.

Now, Damon had unblocked her.

She’d actually impulsively opened the app, wanting to explain herself to him. God, she was crazy!

Fine. Let him leave. Let him misunderstand. There was no point in dragging out this messy, ambiguous connection with an ex–boyfriend who was about to marry someone else, with two people who were never meant to be.

Aubrey gazed at the empty chat screen, a whirlwind of thoughts battling within her. After a beat of intense deliberation, her thumb fell away from the keyboard. She sent nothing.

She stepped inside, pulling the glass door shut behind her, then yanked the curtains closed before heading back to her room to get ready for bed.

Battling insomnia, she took two sleeping pills to finally get some rest.

The next morning.

Aubrey woke up tormented by a pounding headache. Her eyelids felt heavy as she forced them open, her body trembling, slick with cold sweat. A profound wave of weakness washed over her; she couldn’t even manage to sit up.

Depression, like a demon, latched onto her, clinging to her from the moment she awoke.

She knew she had to go to work, a mountain of tasks awaited her, crucial deadlines to meet. She had a career to build, money to earn, yet there was no energy, no driving force to propel her out of bed.

Her hands trembled violently, the shaking growing worse by the second. Her heart hammered in her chest, a frantic, irregular rhythm. Clutching het phone, she scrolled through her daily schedule, trying to conjure a spark of her usual resilience.

But the depression held her captive. It was like being encased in a coffin, crushed beneath a thick pane of glass. An inexplicable agony gripped her, fear

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coiling in her gut, her body shaking uncontrollably, slick with cold sweat, her breath catching in her throat. Tears welled in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks one by one.

There was nothing specific to mourn, nothing that warranted these tears, yet she couldn’t rein in the flood of emotion.

The weight of it all was suffocating, so incredibly dull and achingly sad, completely pointless.

She’d been so swamped these past few days, she’d forgotten her medication. The symptoms had hit her full–force first thing that morning.

A suffocating wave of depression washed over her, and it was already too late for her medication to make a difference.

Huddled in her duvet, her body trembling violently, tears silently soaked her entire face. With trembling fingertips, she opened her messaging app, utterly lost on how to save herself, and as if compelled by some unseen force, she sent Damon a message.

“Damon, I simply don’t have your trophy. Stop using such childish excuses to come looking for me ever again.”

She was convinced it was Damon’s visit last night that had triggered such a massive emotional upheaval in her. It had kept her awake for hours, forcing her to take a sleeping pill to finally get some rest, only for the darkness to descend again this morning.

He was the culprit, the one who could so easily stir her emotions.

Damon’s message popped up seconds later. “First thing in the morning, not even a good morning, and you’re already hitting me with such harsh words. Aubrey, are you made of knives?”

‘No, I’m made of flesh and blood.”

“Then that blood must be ice–cold, and that flesh hard as stone.”

Aubrey stared at his message on the app, a choked laugh escaping her even as tears still streamed down her face. A sliver of strength returned, allowing her to slowly push herself up. Her hands, too, had stopped trembling quite so violently as she typed out her reply: “There’s this incredibly rude driver in my building who parks their car right beneath my window every single night. Last night, their car was suddenly gone. Was that you?”

‘Yeah, that would be me. The ‘rude‘ driver.”

‘Damon, are you out of your mind?” Aubrey typed the message, wiping the cold tears from her cheeks, letting out a long, shaky breath. A strange warmth bloomed in her chest, an unexpected touch of gratitude, yet a part of her still felt he shouldn’t be doing any of this.

Chatting with Damon on the app, it was as if strength was slowly seeping back into her. The heavy veil of depression gradually lifted, more effectively han any medication could. Clutching her phone, she finally made it to the bathroom to wash up.

Damon replied, “Yeah, I’m definitely sick alright. I’ve got this incurable condition, this constant yearning to see you every damn day.”

Aubrey watched the messages as she brushed her teeth, her heart pounding, a maelstrom of conflicting emotions–hurt and helplessness, gratitude and inease–churning inside her.

Married and still hitting on your ex? Have you really stooped this low?”

Damon sent a sneering emoji.

t was accompanied by a message: “No matter how much of a jerk I am, I can’t outdo Aubrey. Are you dating Alex now?”

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