Page 13 of Make Me Feel Again

“No.” Her voice is quiet.

“Okay. I’ll start there.” I take a sip of my wine. “We were at a bar one night, and James had just gotten back from vacation. He was showing us some pictures on his phone and was swiping and swiping and then a picture of you popped up.” She stares into her glass of wine. “Jace and I saw the picture, he tried to scroll back quickly but it was too late. Jace snatched the phone out of his hand and started scrolling. There were at least twenty or so pictures of you. All from your Facebook.” Rylee takes a gulp of her wine. “James didn’t care that Jace had seen them, he just shrugged it off. From that day, Jace kept his distance. It was hard because annoyingly the rest of the group didn’t cut James off. They called him out for it, then swept it under the rug. So Jace still had to see him, but he did everything he could to keep James away from you.”

“That’s why he acted the way he did when James dropped me home.”

“Yep.”

She takes a couple more gulps of her wine. I point to the glass. “Do you want me to top that up for you?”

She shakes her head. “No, thanks. Please carry on.”

“I got a call yesterday afternoon from Casey. I don’t know how she got my number, but I’m glad she did.” I focus on the stem of my glass, running my finger up and down, then close my eyes, recalling everything Casey told me on the phone. I’ve never wanted to hurt a man as much as I do James.

“She had split from James. He told her she did what he needed. She said she was hooked by James, he got his claws so deep into her she was like his puppet, and it wasn’t until he chucked her that she snapped out of the trance she was in.”

I sigh, knowing I need to get the rest out.

“James made Casey do things. Act things out for him. He would make Casey pretend to be you.” She gasps and stares at me with wide eyes and her hand over her mouth. I want to console her, but she needs to know everything. If I stop now, I’ll never tell her the rest.

“She had to dress like you. He would show her pictures of you to recreate hairstyles. She said this was all before she had met you. He would call her Rylee. He—” I take a deep breath before saying the next words. “When they had sex, or did anything sexual, he would call her Rylee.”

She chokes on a sob, so I grab her hand and hold it, squeezing it tight.

“The day at Blossoms wasn’t a coincidence. He knew you were going there. He knew you had a booking. He made Casey take the morning and afternoon off work so he could take her there. When Casey was with James that night, he hit her because she wasn’t acting enough like you. He then began to talk down to her, telling her she would never be you, so he didn’t know why she tried.”

“Cash, please stop. I can’t. I think I’m going to be sick.” Rylee jumps up from the couch and runs out of the living room and up the stairs.

She slams the bathroom door, and as I approach, I hear her gagging, so I open the door.

“Cash, please leave me.”

I sigh while crouching next to her and gathering her hair up. “I’m not going anywhere, Rylee.” I rub her back as she cries and heaves into the toilet.

I tear off some tissue and place it in her hand. She mumbles a “Thank you.”

She flushes the toilet and slumps next to the toilet and cries in her hands. Her uncontrollable sobs cut through me like shattered glass.

“Why has he done this, Cash. Whyyy?” she wails. I gather her in my arms, and she crawls into my lap and holds me while crying into my chest.

“First, Jace, now this. He needs to be stopped.” She sniffles.

“He will. I won’t stop until he’s found and locked away. I’ll make sure he never sees the light of day again.”

“Let me run you a bath, Ry.” She nods into my chest but doesn’t move.

“Can we just stay here a little longer?” What she doesn’t know is I could stay like this all night.

“Of course,” I reply. Five minutes later, when her tears dry up, her head slowly rises. Her gaze penetrates me like she can read every thought in my mind. She is so close I would only have to lean forward slightly for our lips to touch. The lips I dream about, the lips I crave every day.

“Thank you, Cash. Thank you for everything you have done for me.” She gives me a sad smile before standing up.

“I can run my own bath, yo—”

I shake my head while jumping up onto my feet. “No, go get yourself sorted. I will start it for you now.”

She nods, and before she walks out, she turns around. “Cash.”

I nod for her to continue.

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