Page 76 of While You Sleep

He just hadn’t realized it yet.

But he would.

I’d do whatever it took to make him realize just how much he loved me.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cillian

Declan walked into my office and sat opposite me. I carried on with what I was doing, and he didn’t say anything, just sat and waited for me to acknowledge him.

I didn’t feel like talking.

I didn’t feel like much of anything.

The last two days I’d wandered this house like a fucking ghost, making Danny take Sophia her food, trying to get this…this grip in my gut and in the center of my chest to fucking go away.

Sophia was the cause of it. She was the reason I was sitting here reading the same thing over and over again and getting nothing done.

She was so close, just down the hall, her bedroom right beside mine.

Only a matter of days ago, she’d shared my room with me. Every morning I had to force myself to leave my sleeping wife alone in our bed, and every evening I anticipated coming home to her. I snatched up my glass and downed the contents, pouring another glass as it burned its way down my throat.

I wanted to go to her now, so badly. My skin was hot, drawn tight over my muscles. I craved her vanilla-and-cinnamon scent, the taste of her, the sound of her moans while I ate her, or fucked her.

She may have lied about the rest, but that she couldn’t fake. Not the way her pussy gripped me when she came or the way she soaked my fingers, her cries for more. She’d wanted me, and if that was all we could have now, then so be it. Maybe I should toss her out, forget she exists, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“You shaved,” Declan finally said, sick of waiting for me to speak.

“Aye.” I hadn’t been without the beard for over a year, not since Seamus asked me to follow Sophia and find out everything there was to know about her. I don’t know why I’d kept it once she was mine.

Yes, you do. You were afraid without a trace of Dean, she wouldn’t want you. That she’d see you for what you are—that she’d be afraid of you.

That was it, wasn’t it? I may be emotionally stunted, but I’d read enough psychology books to understand the truth of my actions. And today I shaved because I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to resist her. I feared I might cave and let her back in, even after what she’d done, but if she saw me like this, all traces of Dean completely gone, she’d make it easy on me and tell me she hated me, that she was scared of me. That she’d see the fucked-up monster Seamus turned me into and make it easier for me to end this for both of us.

“Are you ever going to let her out of that room, brother?” Dec asked when I said no more.

“Sophia isn’t any of your business.” I frowned at the way her name caught in the back of my throat. “Did you find Sally?”

“Not yet. Got a lead, though.”

She’d taken off into the night. It could be that she was scared after what happened…or it could be something else, and I wouldn’t be satisfied until I spoke to her.

Dec sat back. “You can’t keep Sophia up there forever,” he said, ignoring me.

“I can do whatever the fuck I like.” I knew he was right, of course, but I wasn’t sure what else to do.

“What did she say happened?”

I took another sip of my drink. “That Paolo forced her into the car, that she didn’t want to leave. But no one forced her at gunpoint to leave my bed, to leave this house. None of it adds up. She lied to me.” I squeezed my glass tighter. “She says she loves me.” The words felt strange in my mouth. I don’t think I’d ever said the word love out loud in my life.

Dec’s brow lifted, his head tilting to the side. “Do you believe her?”

“No,” I said, and my stomach tightened.

“Why?” he asked.

I didn’t understand the concept of love; how would I know if she meant it or not? Logically, it should be an impossibility. I’d stalked her, forced her to marry me. I’d held her against her will, then and now. I never bothered to hide what and who I was. “I’ve given her no reason to.”