Free Chasing Forever by Pamela Ann Page B

taking my words in before I continued. “But I would love to see you try. Will you be ready for my kind of challenge, Toby Watson?”
    “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Lucy.” His eyes sparked with wickedness as he eyed me like a cat that had eaten the canary.

    He had warned me, hadn’t he? I had just been too confident then to let it sway me. My crazed obsession with him had blinded me from everything. He was the only thing I had seen. The only thing that had mattered, and I had wanted to keep him for as long as I could. However, the more I hung on to him—to our relationship—the more it had become complicated.
    From one complication to the other, each one became harder to tackle. My shield started to chip away and poisonous words got through to me. In the end, I thought I had done the right thing by saving us both. I had been convinced then, and I was about to tell myself again, why it had been better for the both of us when my hungry, betraying eyes spotted him strolling towards us.
    He was wearing d ark jeans and a powder blue dress shirt with the sleeves pushed above his elbows. The color of the shirt made his eyes lighter than usual, and it was unbuttoned at top in such a way that it hinted at the sculpted body underneath it. He was magnificent, and I thought the woman with him believed so too because she couldn’t look away, not even for a second as they chatted and walked towards our table.
    How could I ever move on when I was my very own worst enemy?

Chapter 10
    Toby

    Deciding to come out tonight wasn’t an easy decision. My mind resisted, however my heart battled fiercely, winning readily because, let’s face it, I was dying to see her even though it had only been a mere twenty-four hours since I had seen her last.
    Ava, my cousin, had called me when I was getting ready to leave. Wanting to hit two birds with one stone, I invited her to come out and meet me at the bar Chad had mentioned. I hadn’t seen her since the wedding, and I didn’t doubt the random call was about my pending divorce from Amelia. Not for a second did I doubt that my parents had notified everyone about what I was planning to do. Nor did I doubt that they were doing this on purpose so they could rally everyone in my family to go against me so that I wouldn’t stand a chance amongst all of them. They fully hoped, I’m sure, that I would eventually yield to their demands and cancel any thoughts and notions about leaving Amelia, but that was never going to happen. My mother should have known better than to push me around like I was some kind of puppet she could use for her own benefit. She had successfully done it for a few years, however I was no longer in the mood to give in to her demands.
    I was done living for them. For years, I had shoved my needs aside so I could help and cater to their notorious lifestyle. Saving them from bankruptcy several times, paying off gambling debts, putting my brother through his private education, and working alongside my father in his business . I’d had enough of my family’s never ending drama and making countless excuses for their failed parenting skills.
    It was high time to live my life. The way I wanted it.
    In their eyes, they deemed it selfish that I couldn’t put my life on hold for them since we were family and all. What good was a family if all they ever did was take advantage of me and demand consistently until I ran out of resources? One other thing that my parents were after—my mother most especially—was the inheritance I was going to get when my aunt passed away. That fact wouldn’t be important had she not been diagnosed with a terminal illness last year. The same year things had fallen apart with Lucy.
    Lucy hadn’t had a clue about any of th at, though. I had planned to tell her, but she never gave me the chance to explain. How could I when she ignored every attempt at reconciliation with her?
    Back to my ever living present . I was parking my car right outside the bar