We arrive at a boat dock overlooking the bay. The stars in the sky seem to shimmer over the ripples in the water. It had been a while since natural waters seem to cross. I felt like a fish out of water sometimes. Mr. Hale and I take a stride down the dock towards his boat. The breeze against my skin felt refreshing. I could breathe normally without feeling like I had been limited to oxygen.

"Ideally this emotional attachment was never going to work out," he states coldly.

I'm at a lost for words as he tries to sound a bit sincere. The audacity of this man has confused me beyond compare. "You think by admitting this to me is suppose to make everything better?" I shriek.

He's puzzled by my question as if I am asking him to solve a mathematical equation. "I suppose not," he says quizzed.

"You brought me way out here.. to tell me it wouldn't work? !?" I'm belligerent at this moment. I want nothing more than to slap him in the face for all the pain and the tears he caused.

There was silence between us. Everything was ten times louder in my ear, my brain, and my heart. I could hear the wind not settling and blowing the loose strands of hair. The waves started to crash harder against the dock and his words were clear. How it felt against my heart. That was a whole other pain.

"Why?"

"Because.."

"Because WHY!?" I'm shouted.

Mr. Hale startled by my outburst turns around for a moment, clearing his throat. "First, there is a relationship, then marriage, and kids. Then you will expect me to behave differently. To be different. You'll want me to comply and be decent. Just like my parents. Expecting nothing, but preciseness and exactness. I am not a machine. I don't want to settle down. I do not want to be burdened w-.."

"With what?" My lips quiver. "Me?"

I dare not want to finish the sentence, but I have to. "You don't want to be burden with me? With the idea of we could have an amazing relationship.." My heart couldn't bear to finish this conversation.

"I'm not who you want me to be! You think I could ever be settled down? That I could ever be able to have children and live the life of a traditional family."

"Xander... I never asked anything of you, but you. I never asked you to move in with me, or have a family with me. I didn't even know you were my Xander until you made it apparent. Now that all these feelings are out in the open you are trying to push me away?"

It had been made apparent that Mr. Hale had been jumping to conclusions just as I was. There was something scaring him as there was something scaring me. The unanswered feelings, thoughts, and actions of the future. I did want to someday be able to have a life where I was settled. If not with him then with whoever would have me. I was careless and stupid to have been putting myself first.

"You needn't say anything else," I sigh. "I can show myself out."

It was the last thing I could bring myself to say. No other words needed to be exchanged. There was no amount of kisses, no amount of times we could have sex, no amount of words that could have changed our oppositions. We were both too stubborn to make a compromise.

"At least let me walk you out," he insists.

"I can uber myself home if you don't mind. I've had enough of your presence for one night. Plus tomorrow I will have to be up early tomorrow."

My head couldn't wrap the concept of Mr. Hale and I suppose to be having dinner and then this wicked conversation of meaningless feelings. I couldn't comply with his code. Just like a robot can calculate the risks, dangers, and statistics. Mr. Hale could calculate whether being intimate with someone like me risk his status.

How fucking stupid.

I scoff shaking my head at the thought of his pretentiousness proving a point. Maybe Glen and Dwight were right. It's a gentleman's affair. No female could compete in the same game as men. Maybe I was underestimating my ability to beat this man at his own game.

"Let's suppose I didn't want children or marriage. Then what?" I come to a halt in my tracks.

I turn a heel towards Mr. Hale, my hands still crossed across my chest. "I would pursue this relationship to new heights." He states blandly.

"Cut the bullshit, what do you really want?"

"Ellie.."

"Answer me," I close my eyes for a minute. "Just answer the question."

There's a brief moment of silence between us both. The wind rustling behind us and the sloshing of the water were all that could be heard.

"Sex."

"Sex.." I repeat.

His jaw clenches tightly enough to the shape of his face and the shadows cover half of his face. A depiction of and white. Light and . and good. Heaven and . Let's suppose I were to have agreed to his terms. That would make me what in this case.

A fuck buddy.

"You just want to have sex with me? That's it."

"I wanted you to be willing to give yourself willingly to me. To comply with my every command sexually. To be submissive to me. It gives me pleasure." He explains further.

I roll my eyes listening to his explanation. There's no way in fucking hell. I was a new woman. A woman bent on being independent, loved, and respected. Not to mention I have a half of boyfriend who has been very patient, compliant, and nice to me. Sebastian would have been torn if he knew where I was, and with who, talking about this.

"Sebastian is waiting for me..."

"Your boyfriend?" He raises an eyebrow.

I turn my heel forward and proceed to walk down the dock back towards the vehicle. "I am afraid that's none of your concern anymore."

"That's amusing considering you wanted to inquire about Caroline."

I hear him rub the stubble on his chin and then briefly grinning. I couldn't help but roll my eyes again. "You really cannot expect a woman like me to not ask questions when we did have sex. It's not like it didn't happen. You cannot assume that it's easy to just move forward with life knowing that someone you genuinely cared about doesn't want you."

For the first time in a long while the words that I wanted to say finally spilled out of my mouth. I knew better, but this time nothing was holding me back. This was the last time I would be meeting up with Mr. Hale. It would be strictly business from here on out. Nothing else.

Mr. Hale for once is finally quiet letting me vent as much as I needed to. I hoped he knew he messed up and would have wanted to reconcile, but I am crazy. Sebastian is a good man. Why was I wanting to hold onto Mr. Hale? I felt like a drug addicted needing a fix.

"You think I don't want you?"

It was hard to ignore his question until we came upon the black SUV still waiting patiently. "Mr. Hale, I understand if your mother made it seem like I wanted marriage and kids no matter what. That's every woman in the back of her mind. Someone to carry her legacy. I understand that that's not what you want, but instead of pushing me away you could have come and conversed with me. The current situation now presents me to believe that you will always run away from your problems. I did not pose a threat to you, your company, and not to your heart. I only wanted you. I always have. Since we started chatting online. It didn't matter who you were, what you looked like, or where you came from. I wasn't aware of the current feelings until you exerted them upon me. I didn't ask anything but your love and loyalty. If that was too much then I would have understood and respected your decision."

Mr. Hale eyes blatantly stare at me with not a hint of emotion in them. I wondered if I through a curve ball at him. I wondered if he felt like this was something he could have fixed easily. His soft grayish with a hint of blue eyes couldn't look at me long enough.

"Let's get you home..."

The conversation stopper. I had put an end to all his unanswered questions, but there still left mine. I would have to endure a thirty to forty minute car ride with Mr. Hale back to my apartment in complete silence. It would annoy the hell out of me. It didn't make it any better that every second light we'd have to stop for the oncoming traffic.

"I never expected any of this to happen. It didn't occur to me that the type of woman you were and would become could weaken even a man like me. I thought wrong of you, Ellie. I underestimated you. I must apologize on my behalf." He says.

The way he apologized made me feel like he had actually was sincere. This made the car ride more relaxed than it would have been. I couldn't count on my big mouth to keep the conversation with little to no intensity. What made it even worse was the chilling air conditioner that made it feel like a freezer. I'm pretty sure I had no toes.

A shiver went down my body before he asked.

"Are you cold?"

I nod my head slowly wanting to be stubborn and just endure the cold. That would have been an epic fail. "Yes, I am.." I murmur.

"Turn the air off." He demands. "Tell me about this, Sebastian." He eliminates the silence between us.

"Sebastian is this guy I met at the coffee shop a mile down from my apartment building. I was fortunate to have someone who was less uncoordinated than myself. It would have been a nasty fall."

"Sounds romantic," he says sarcastically.

I hold my tongue from saying anything slick. Mr. Hale was unpredictable and I wasn't willing to bet my only ride home on it. "He's nice," I state.

"It doesn't sound like you like him too much if I beg to differ. You do not sound very enthusiastic about his presence."

It wasn't that I didn't like Sebastian around. It was just late that Sebastian had been more focus on the world's problems rather than his own. A bit selfless when it came to others. I couldn't be selfish though because while he was out to make the world better, I just wanted to make me better. My life better.

Everyone is selfish in some way though, right?

"I do like Sebastian. He's a nice change of pace for me. I am not dealing with some CEO or power hungry man."

"There's that 'nice' word again.." He repeats after me.

I couldn't ignore the fact that compared to Mr. Hale everyone else was a footnote. He had made that apparent with the expensive dining, cars, wardrobe, and lifestyle. Rags to Riches.

"I don't expect you to understand what kind of man Sebastian is. I just would appreciate if you respect him as someone that is a gentleman, and someone I am dating," I declared in a tone in which a mother would use.

It seemed to catch him off guard. I don't usually assert myself too much in any type of way, but the last thing I wanted was for Sebastian to feel inferior or even bothered by Mr. Hale. "He doesn't know about us does he?" He probes for more information.

"He only knows what little I share with him..."

Mr. Hale swiftly removes his iPhone from his pocket and taps some keys I am unable to see by his fast movements. "What's his full name?" He asks.

"Why?"

"I just want to see if I know him," his soft voice says. "It's for business purposes."

I contemplate for a minute if I should disclose that information to Mr. Hale. "Sebastian Jensen," the words quickly leave my mouth. A fabricated name. But one could not trust Mr. Hale with his many capabilities.

One day you could know someone and in a matter of twenty-four to forty-eight hours their gone. "There's a lot of people who come and go out of your life. Isn't there?" I decided to ask him a more personal question.

"I don't see how that has any relevance to the situation," he ignores my question still typing away on his iPhone. "Everyone comes and goes at their leisure. So in the general sense, yes, yes a quite of bit of people come and go." He answers.

I was one of those people. The come and go type of people.

"Do you feel like people leave because of you or do people leave because of themselves?"

"Let me ask you something, Miss Donovan," he pauses for a moment turning to the side so that his eyes can penetrate mine. The intensity was still there like it had always been. "Would you stay with someone you knew couldn't change? Or.. Would you stay with someone knowing you could never change because of your strong sense of every fiber of your being?" This question posed some serious thought, but I already knew my answer.

We pulled up to the curb outside of my apartment with the howling of police sirens in the distance. Between us is a thick silence though, like in the movie scenes where you are about to say something important or meaningful. Except this wasn't a movie. This was a reality where girl meets boy, boy loves the girl, the girl can't have the boy due to complications.

This is a tragedy.

I take a minute to gather my words. "I would stay because every fiber of my being could be wrong. Not everything can be calculated. Not love. Not life. If someone left because of themselves it's because they didn't see the value in staying. That's something any adult could assess, but if it were a situation that could be fixed. Every adult would stay.... Because they love that situation."

"I do love you, Ellie."