Page 120 of Angel Eyes

I licked the inside of my mouth. “Gabriel, I need you to trust me.”

My heart drummed loud and fast in my ears as he stared at me, his expression anguished. He pressed his eyelids shut, his muscles tensing as though he were warring with something within himself. Then slowly, too slowly, he opened his eyes again.

“Then … this is over.”

This is over.

A wave of agony hit me all at once, and I gripped my sides to hold my body together. It felt like a train wreck happening in slow motion, debris flying everywhere, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. And I was powerless to stop it.

He took a step backward, then another.

“Don’t do this, Gabriel,” I said, finding my voice. “Don’t do something you’ll regret later.”

Pain slashed across his features. “The only thing I regret is the day I ever laid eyes on you.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned and strode away, leaving me standing alone on the quay as all the feeling drained from my limbs. I fell to my knees.

“Gabriel.” I croaked, my mouth dry as ash. I tried again. “Gabriel.”

His retreating form grew farther away, his outline becoming fainter as the distance between us stretched. And then I felt it. The cracks in my body as my soul splintered. The wellspring of tears I’d been holding back fell as I watched the man who owned my heart walk out of my life.

Clutching my arms to my chest, I folded over, my hair falling around my face like a shroud, my forehead scraping against the hard ground.

Then I screamed into the night.

Forty-One

Juliet

The first thing I knew was the feeling of hands clutching my arms, tightening around my biceps and pinning me down. And then I heard the screaming. Where was it coming from?

“Juliet. Juliet. Babe, wake up.”

I jerked awake, blinking in the darkness a second before someone switched on the bedside lamp, and I sucked in a harsh breath, recoiling from the glare. Shivering from head to toe, my eyes connected with Simone’s, taking in her face pinched with concern as she slanted over me, palms clutching the sides of my face.

“There you are,” she said with a fragile smile. “It’s all right. You’re all right.” My body was still trembling when someone threw open the bedroom door.

“What’s happened? Is she okay?”

I peered over Simone’s shoulder to find Carter standing at the foot of my bed in a rumpled shirt, running a hand over his face creased with sleep lines.

“She’s fine.” Simone exchanged a look with him that I couldn’t interpret before she returned her gaze to me. “We’re fine, aren’t we, Juliet?”

I stared up at her, taking in her braids piled up in a messy bun, her slender form draped in one of my oversized T-shirts. And then it hit me all at once, like a nightmare lingering in the shadows, just waiting for me to fall asleep. Flashes of my hysterical phone call to Simone, of Simone and Carter’s worried faces as they pushed through a crowd of strangers who had stopped to gawk or do whatever it is people do when they see something horrible happening. The memory of it all came flooding back to me in one crushing torrent, carrying with it the pieces of my shattered heart.

“Did it really happen?” I whispered hoarsely, clinging to her. “Was it real?”

Her lips pressed into a grim line as Carter shifted uncomfortably behind her.

“Yeah, babe. It was real.”

The door creaked open, and the sweet aroma of something I couldn’t identify wafted into the room. Peeling my eyes open, I found Simone, fully dressed, placing a breakfast tray at the foot of the bed before she parted the silk curtains, letting in a bar of sunlight. I rolled over onto my other side, draping a hand over my eyes and only just resisting the urge to hiss like some sort of vampire.

“Juliet.” The bed dipped as she sank down onto it, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You have to eat something, babe.”

“I’m tired.” I burrowed further into the sheets. Food was the absolute last thing on my mind. Tequila? Maybe. But that would require me to get out of bed, so that was out too.

“I know,” she said gently, running her fingers through my tangled hair. “But it’s been two days. You have to eat something, even if it’s just a few bites.”

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