Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 114260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
When I pull away, her eyes are filled with tears. “That felt like a goodbye. Why did that feel like a goodbye?”
I’d flay the very skin off my back to keep her happy. To keep those eyes from filling with tears like that.
There’s no more time. I have to man the fuck up and tell her.
I have to tell her everything.
“Violet, when you first came here, that day you came and asked me to help you find your parents’ killer?”
She nods slowly. Waiting. There’s no easy way to say this.
“I already knew who you were.” I watch her eyes grow troubled, but she doesn’t speak.
“It was my intent from the very beginning to bring you here. I… had been obsessed with you for months.”
A look of confusion crosses her features. I’m sure she’s replaying everything in her mind, trying to figure this all out, trying to decipher my meaning. “What do you mean?”
I sit heavily on a chair by the door and tug her down to my lap, but she gently extricates herself from me and sits beside me instead.
Jesus.
“I was doing surveillance with Armand and Joe. There was an asshole cheating on his wife, and we were monitoring people at the mall. We had cameras set up, and we recorded everything to get evidence. And…well, there you were.”
“At the mall?” She looks perplexed. She needs a full view of things before she can make any judgment call. It’s her way. “Oh. Oh, wait.” She pales. “Cain, that was… back in the spring. I did a demonstration at the mall. That was… months and months before I met you.” Even her lips look paler.
Jesus.
“I know.” I clear my throat. “I saw you there, and I had to have you. You looked at the camera. You didn’t even know that you did, and I… saw your eyes. They mesmerized me. I remember thinking they looked like amethyst caught in moonlight.”
She looks at me sadly. “You had me followed.”
“I followed you myself. I watched you. I looked into you.”
“You stalked me, Cain.” Her voice sounds distant and hollow. I reach for her hand, but she pulls back. I feel stung. She hasn’t yelled or gotten angry or hurt me in any way.
A part of me wishes she would.
I’m not going to sugarcoat this. “I did, baby.”
Her voice is a whisper. “Don’t call me that.”
My gut clenches. “I was obsessed with you, Violet. No. I am obsessed with you.”
“You never told me. If you’d only told me…”
“You would’ve run from me.”
“You don’t know that!” Now, I see the anger. Now, I feel it. She stands, but I quickly tug her back down so she doesn’t run. We have to talk this out.
“I don’t, but I know you well enough to know that vulnerability scares the living hell out of you. I knew I had to show you that you could trust me.”
“By lying to me?” She laughs mirthlessly. “Tell me how that works?”
“God, babe, no. By showing you I was a man who had your best interest in mind.”
“And in your mind, stalking me, luring me here, and acting like I was a perfect stranger the first day we met was somehow the right thing to do?”
My phone rings, but I silence it.
“Go ahead. Take it,” she says, looking away. “I need a minute.”
“No.”
She looks at me and purses her lips. “Suit yourself.”
“Listen to me, Violet.”
“That’s all I’ve done is listen.” Her arms are wound across her chest as if to wall herself off from me. As if she wants to ensure I don’t touch her.
“So when Armand got into that accident with me… it wasn’t an accident at all? You put him up to it? How, Cain?”
I blow out a breath and go for broke. “You’re the kind of woman who values independence. You need to know that things are on your terms.”
“So you thought it best, in that omniscient mind of yours, to make those decisions for me? Oh, I get it now. Lovely.”
She blinks, and a tear rolls down her cheek. Fuck.
Fuck.
“I knew I could help you. I knew you’d want me to. But I had to make sure you were doing things on your terms.”
“Cain, how could I ever trust you again after this?” She stands and shakes her head. I reach for her, but she bats my hand away.
“I deserve this,” I tell her honestly. Jesus, I deserve this and so much fucking more. I wish she’d yell at me, or hit me, or throw something at me for fuck’s sake. I wish she’d slap me or even come at me and fight, which she absolutely could do. She hasn’t really, other than the little spat with the cudgels, since that first day she attacked me and I warned her never to try to fight me again. I wouldn’t defend myself, though. I’d let her hurt me and know I deserved more than whatever the fuck she gave me. “Sorry seems so futile, babe.”