Emma knew she couldn’t let go of her feelings for Patrick, their previous agreement was just crap. But Emma didn’t want to be the one to break the agreement, at least her self-esteem made her not want to be the first to do so. Every time she saw Jennifer and the latter treated her like air, it reminded her of what Jennifer had said to her. “I know you want to take away my partner, then take away my son, you bitch!” At that time, Jennifer’s hysteria didn’t faze her, she even found it somewhat absurd and ridiculous, but now she felt a sense of panic, that woman had seen through her poor acting. Therefore, she began to intentionally avoid encounters with Patrick in the house.
Patrick felt that Emma had been acting strangely lately. Despite their previous intimate conversations about everything in their lives, he had seen much less of Emma in the house recently. Even though Emma didn’t have anything to do recently, she still had a week before school started, and Rory’s bakery had not been renovated yet. This made him anxious.
It had been a full week since he had seen Emma and he found her image becoming particularly clear in his mind. He heard a voice in his head screaming to see her. “This isn’t right,” he struggled to convince himself. “You can’t do this. You can’t force her, can’t confine her, she is free, she belongs only to herself, you have no right to demand how she should behave.” But he wanted to see her, wanted to have an intimate conversation with her, wanted to be close to her, to hear her breathing and heartbeat, to feel the warmth of her skin, and to wake up in the morning to see her beautiful smile.
Was Emma concerned about Shirley? What did she know? Patrick knew he might be beyond redemption. He hadn’t found his destined partner, but what did it matter? A destined partner might not necessarily be better than Emma.
In just a short month, his habits had gradually become associated with Emma. His taste, his aesthetics, he felt willing to do anything, as long as it made Emma happy, as long as it could bring them closer together. But this was not right. Emma was only sixteen.
He decided to talk to Harry again about Emma. Harry rarely came to Patrick’s office during this time period, and he seemed unchanged from the person Patrick had seen several years ago, even the person in the office chair had not changed much. Harry thought Patrick looked like the kind of person favored by fate.
“What’s up? Suddenly coming to me,” Harry joked as he closed the door. “It’s not related to your little girlfriend again, is it?” Since knowing that Patrick liked Emma, Harry had started calling her that. Even though Patrick had asked him several times not to call her that, after all, she was still a minor, but his intuition told him that Patrick would end up with Emma.
Patrick glared at him. “I told you, you can’t use such frivolous words to refer to her.”
Harry lazily sat down on the sofa. “You can just tell me where you need me. I’ve been very busy lately.”
Patrick said, “There are two things.”
Harry finally sat up straight.
“The first thing is, I feel that my feelings for Emma are wrong, and should be condemned.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, why are you still obsessing over this? You’re not blood-related, and besides, Nelson and your mother don’t have any children, you’re just nominally siblings. When she comes of age, you won’t have any relationship at all.”
Patrick clenched his hands together. “But lately, I’ve been afraid. I feel that these feelings might hurt her. I want to keep her by my side all the time, watching her every move, she can’t easily leave my sight. I’m trying to control her.”
His voice became subdued as he rested his head on his hands.
“But this way, she will only want to escape from me. I can’t do this.”
Harry didn’t know what to say.
In many ways, werewolves were still instinctively animals, their way of thinking was savage and straightforward, they often didn’t even think, they acted purely on instinct. Werewolves had evolved to a point where they should have been able to overcome their primitive instincts, but love was uncontrollable. Love drove people crazy, made them obsessed and intoxicated, love was poison, and the antidote.
Patrick had never loved anyone before, his father and grandfather were rational and calm people, they would never appear crazy in love. It seemed that the only person who seemed to become neurotic for love was Jennifer. In this respect, Patrick was very much like his mother.
He approached Patrick, putting his hand on his shoulder.
“You don’t need to feel painbecause that’s what love is. Love is full of selfishness, full of possessiveness, that’s how people can feel the most needed in the world, because that’s the emotion that satisfies you the most.”
Patrick didn’t know if that was right. He had never experienced love between partners before, he couldn’t smell other people’s pheromones, those pheromones couldn’t make him feel aroused, couldn’t arouse his desires, not even Shirley’s.
Or rather, especially Shirley’s. Every time he had sex with Shirley, he could only feel pain, because the person inducing his pheromones was not the person he truly loved, the person who truly matched him. To Jennifer, to him, Shirley was just a tool to stabilize his mind.
He equally detested the way he treated Shirley. Every time he warned Shirley, telling her not to try to possess something that didn’t belong to her, he could see the hurt and anger in Shirley’s eyes, she was just good at concealing it. Because she had been treated like this countless times, she was already used to it.
So every time Shirley calmly put on her clothes, fixed her face, and still smiled at him, saying, “Remember not to come to me when I’m busiest next time,” he deeply understood that he was no different from those bastards who bullied the helpless girls in the pleasure quarters. He was just a more handsome, more powerful, and not physically abusive bastard, that’s all.
So everything he wanted to do for Emma now exceeded his understanding of his own values. He felt that his desire for Emma was just like when he hurt Shirley at first, he was trying to take away everything that should have belonged to Emma.
Her freedom, her ideals, her sense of self.
He didn’t know if this was what normal love was like, just like losing the other person would mean losing one’s heartbeat and breath.