Page 67 of Seduce & Destroy

“Shhh,” I whispered, while mentally, I had to tell myself she didn’t mean it or else I feared my heart would fall right out my chest. “Father said he’d killed you.”

“He tried.” I admitted, soothing her gasp immediately by threading my arm around her back, pulling her back onto the bed. I needed her close, and she needed me, despite her words. “He also failed.”

“Thank God.” The sentiment warmed my cheeks. I hoped to override her instinct to flee with touch and affection. But we both knew this was a temporary fix.

We laid together for a minute, backs flat on the bed, both just staring at the ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the painting above her fireplace. It still hung but it was at an angle as if knocked in haste or purposely placed lopsided.

A smile played on my lips at the thought of her being unable to tack down the portrait that reminds her of me. I meant something to her. I knew it. She didn’t want me gone, she couldn’t stand it. And neither could I. With that in mind, I turned to my side on the bed, committing every inch of her to memory.

“Is this real?” Laney whispered, eyes stuck on the ceiling still.

“Always.”

“Not the circumstances. They were manufactured.” Her head turned in my direction. She still didn’t believe me. “Were the feelings too?”

Reaching out an arm, I pushed a hair that had fallen behind her ear. “No, all my emotions were real.”

“Even at the beginning?”

“At the time, I wouldn’t have thought so, but yes. I couldn’t deny you.”

“Even back at St James’s?”

I could tell she was fighting the insecurity in her heart that told her I cared for her because I had to. It wasn’t true. “From the first moment I ever saw you, my eyes have found you first in every room that I’ve walked into, and my heart has skipped a beat each time you returned it.” A single tear slid down her cheek, and I pressed a kiss to it to stop its journey.

“You know,” I continued, “When my mother told me I’d be going to state school to spy on this teenage girl, I almost threw a tantrum. The only knowledge of schools was from TV, so I told her that I didn’t want to be around those bratty, soft, and entitled girls. And she just said, ‘well, that’s tough,’ but little did she know, bratty and soft were my favourite kind of girl.” I poked her side, and she squirmed into a light laugh.

“Father calls me sensitive.” She said after a few moments.

In response, I draped an arm over her waist and pulled her close. “Sensitive is how I like it.”

Her eyebrows furrowed furiously. “Why?”

“Because sensitive is you.”

“Ugh, corny much? And that’s not a good thing, you know?”

“And why is that?”

“I feel things, too many things, too much. It holds me back.”

“It doesn’t have to be. You're very emotionally intelligent, it’s a strength.”

“Don’t flatter me.” She pulled a decorative cushion from behind her and hit me with it.

“I’m not.” I said, sternly, but I was laughing too.

“Well, you’re obsessed with me anyway, so your opinion doesn’t count.” It was a joke, but she didn’t know how true it was. She consumed me.

Hugging the cushion to her chest, she looked at me. The stagnant air filled the room with the overwhelming dread that all this was temporary. Tomorrow was the funeral. The deadline.

“I don’t want this to end.” She whimpered. “Don’t leave me.”

But I would. We both knew it, her father even before we did. “He tried to have me killed.” My voice cracked. “If he saw me here, saw me now, he wouldn’t hesitate.”

It was a devastating blow to deliver, and it made me bereft. Not because of the fact that Richard had designated me enemy number one, but because of the clinging arms that snaked around my neck. And with it, her legs cinched my waist stemming the blood from reaching my head. I didn’t care. Over the last couple weeks, she had become as important as oxygen.

If I were to lose her, I would at least revel in the feeling of lethargy that came with a lack of circulation and dread the blood rush that would fill my head again in her absence.

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