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Please continue reading if you’ve read the story starter – a very long Chapter 1 – and you’re ready to dive into the story with me.

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About the story: (short description. Click here for longer)

“Let Me Love You” is a tale of love and sacrifice and a poignant story of self-discovery, celebrating the human capacity to find love in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Please enjoy the current WIP of Iris and El. This will be published freely up to a point, like in the old days, and then the entire book will be posted for full download. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. And don’t forget to check out the companion stories. (Wicked Chances, Dreams of Reality, The Convenient Wife, The Other Side of Love, She Works Hard for the Money & Ravenous)

Enjoy, Your Author, Sylvia Hubbard

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Read more: Let Me Love You – Chapter 42✍🏾📚❤️ #SylLit #WIP #livestory 📖💓 #marriedwife #demandedconsensual #darkromance

Author’s Notes: I’m trying to get these chapters down to 1500. Although you may love them, they are pretty long; I shouldn’t stress your eyes like that. 1500 is a sweet number and helps me set up the story and move it faster.

So we’re going into what happened. With the journals found and so much more happening in this chapter, please don’t forget to hear the little things that come to the surface.

This took me on a wild ride, and I hope it does for you, too. Let me know in the comments.

Iris snatched the book from him and reread the passage for herself. It was dated the day after Iris had the baby. Tears welled in her eyes as she realized the implications of what her sister had written. 

‘It was dead when he looked at it.’

Wait! All these years! All the guilt.

Standing up in frustration, Iris said, “I should go.” Being around him would only compound the emotions running through her. 

“Iris, please don’t,” he said. “We can work through-“

“No, El,” she said. “Not with you.” The sob was on the precipice of expelling out of her body. She couldn’t deal with him, and her emotions were inflating through every vein of her body. 

She was going to burst. 

Rushing to get her coat and shoes, she didn’t bother to put them on and slammed out of the hotel lobby. 

He didn’t follow, and she was glad as she got to the elevators. The doors opened, and she slammed into the person coming out because she hadn’t been looking. 

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, looking up to see Damien Wexford. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, immediately recognizing her and guiding her into the elevator, allowing the doors to close around them.

She pushed away from him and hit the lobby floor. “I’m fine.” This had to look inappropriate coming from El’s room at night. 

Yet, Damien only looked concerned. “You don’t look fine.”

“I just need to get home-” Iris stopped realizing she’d left her purse. Damn! 

And then all the frustration, guilt, and cruelty she’d endured over the years burst out of her with a half-wail, low moan sob. Her eyes filled with so many tears she couldn’t see, and her legs had suddenly gone weak. 

“Gawd! No! Just no. Nothing is fine!” she found herself screaming at him. 

His arms were around her, helping her up to her feet where she had collapsed on the elevator floor. Damien did something with his key card and pushed an all-black button that lit up a set of buttons. He pushed one of those and then led her out.

Iris was crying so much that she could barely comprehend where he was taking her, but from the elevators, he led her to a low-lit room with velvet-blue furniture, like a private living room. 

He guided her to the couch and pulled her back into his embrace while she cried out for decades of holding herself back from all the pain her father, sister, and Dwayne had caused her. 

Whispers outside her room and conversations stopping abruptly began rolling back into her mind. They’d all worked against her. No one had been on her side. 

Yet, why? 

Why couldn’t they let her go? 

She needed to leave. 

“I have to go,” she said to Damien. “I have to get out of here.”

He tightened his hold on her and insisted, “Not while you’re like this, Iris. I know we don’t know each other well, but you’re in no state to be alone. We can have this room for as long as I want. Please let me help you. I deserve that to do that.”

Did he? 

“Why? Aren’t you a part of destroying my life?” she asked bitterly, pushing away from him to give them distance. 

Damien’s eyes moved down, and his shoulders slumped. “I helped. I will admit that after so long, but that’s because I thought it was an obligation to my family.” Shrugging, he continued. I don’t feel like that anymore. Once I sold the entire family business to El, I felt free. And I was going to come to you when I thought it was okay. After yesterday, seeing you, I knew we had to speak—alone.”

It was then that she noticed his rugged appearance. Although he wore a suit, she could tell he looked worn, as if he hadn’t changed or shaved in a while. He had been going through some personal things prior to bumping into her, but he had pushed those all away because he was concerned about her. 

Iris became suspicious because how was this moment coincidental? “You were coming up to El’s room?” 

Damien shook his head. “No. I mean, I knew he lived in the hotel. Damn, near bought the whole floor out, but I just moved in tonight because I refuse to live anymore in my family’s home or any other place my father owned anymore. I’ve even given my portion of the money from the sale to charity. You surprised me when those elevator doors opened because I had no idea how to get a private moment with you without your boss. El has a problem with sharing even for personal events.”

Taking a deep breath, Iris braced herself for his answer as she asked, “How did you help, Damien?”

He shifted himself and looked around the room. When his eyes landed on a small bar he could help himself to, he jumped up and went over to make himself a drink. 

“Did you want something to drink?”

She didn’t feel comfortable drinking, needing all her wits about her to deal with this whole situation. “I’d like to stay sober when I don’t feel safe.”

“You have a right to feel like that after what you’ve been through.” He tipped the first glass he poured and then poured another one before he returned to her. When he sat down, he splayed his legs wide, opened his jacket, and loosened his tie.

Iris watched him intently. 

Damien sipped his drink and said, “Before I answer you, do you still have those blackouts?”

She paused before immediately speaking, but only because she wanted to think about the motives behind his question and why he was so disjointed about what sounded like a simple question: “I haven’t had a blackout in years.” 

His hand slightly twitched as he took another sip. “I want to say I’m sorry,” he said quietly. I haven’t admitted to anything, but I feel I must say this before we go any further. When everything happened, I was in a place in my life where I felt my father was some god, but after everything happened…” His voice drifted, and there was a dead look in his eyes. 

Reaching over and placing her hand on his, Iris waited until his eyes met hers as if he had forgotten she was in the room. She was ready emotionally to know what had happened, and she knew Damien would probably bring her closer to those answers and help her get through this painful rift.

“What happened, Damien? What did you help them with?” Iris demanded.

He needed both hands to hold his drink because the twitch had started to turn into a shake. He brought the glass to his mouth, but his lip had also started to tremble. Quickly, he brought the drink down and gulped loudly. 

“I was only twelve when I snuck into my father’s backseat to go with him to the White House,” he said quietly. “It changed my life.”

She knew he was speaking of the property they were just at, but she didn’t interrupt him and listened as his breathing became ragged. 

“He was in such a hurry to get inside he didn’t bother to see if his doors were locked. After he parked, I snuck out of the car and snuck inside after waiting until everyone else went in so I wouldn’t be seen. I watched…” His voice left him, and he quickly finished his drink, cleared his throat, and continued. “Your mother was there… naked like she was only in a room with my dad, but there were all these other men around just watching. My father… he was sitting on the couch… you know, the one against the wall with his pants down. Your mother… she did it to him; Got on top of him and… I knew she was married to your father. Your dad used to come to our house and fix things up, so I knew him.”

“Was he there?”

“Yes. In the corner by the piano, sitting like a hurt dog watching them. My dad told your dad what a good wife he had.” Damien looked sick to his stomach. “I ran back to the car and threw up. I couldn’t look my father in the eye for years until he came to me on my sixteenth birthday and said it was time for me to be a man. He revealed that he knew I had been watching that night, and now it was my turn. I wanted to throw up again, instantly remembering what I had seen, but this man was a god, like I said. I don’t know if you can understand, Iris. You didn’t grow up in my world where the rich like us got richer by stepping on the toes of people we deceived into trusting us. It’s the old boy’s club I thought I wanted to grow up and be a part of one day. It was a lot of pressure to be anything else. I refused to believe anything my father did was wrong, even when I knew he was stealing people’s businesses under them or tricking them into impossible contracts, getting them while they were desperate. He loved desecrating the weak.” He covered his mouth as if he was about to throw up, but a vulgar burp followed. “I’m sorry.”

Iris was boiling and shaken from his confession and then the apology. Yet she knew there was much more he needed to tell her, and she had to keep herself together because she knew things were about to get worse.

She didn’t acknowledge his apology but pressed on, “What happened the night of your birthday?”

End of This Chapter | Post your thoughts in the comment | Let the author know what’s going on in your head

Let Me Love You (c) 2024 Sylvia Hubbard All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
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