Page 303 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
“Then, it’s best you work on that sick thing.” I step away, not getting far because he wraps his fingers around mine.
“I’m not perfect, Dollie, and you’ll likely be subjected to cruel taunts and whispers from everyone outside, but here with me, you’d be safe. I’d be good to you.”
“I know you would.” I squeeze his hand, my thumb running over his scars. It brings me comfort, his soft skin.
“You’re my person,” I whisper as low as I can.
“And you’re mine.” His lips place the softest kiss on my shaking hand. He notices my fear in those movements, in the sweat sticky on my palm. “You don’t need to do this. If he’s hurt you today, tell me, and you won’t have to face him alone. I don’t want you to be another statistic.”
“It wasn’t like that.” That’s true. “I’ll be okay.”
Shane never actually snapped, though I thought he would.
Maybe therapy is working. Maybe tomorrow we can have that chat—maybe I’ll be brave enough then.
Ambrose squeezes my hand lightly. “Just so you know, I’d never hurt you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ambrose.” My hand lands on his chest, gentle fingers skating up his neck. “Because you hurt me most of all by leaving me.”
“I did it to save you,” he whispers softly.
And I know that, but it didn’t change the fact that I cried myself to sleep night after night, because I knew I wouldn’t see him for years.
CHAPTER 70
Dollie—present day
“You took a while.” Shane’s words straighten my spine as I enter my room.
Seeing him on the bed, the sheets turned back, and waiting for me, makes my stomach roll.
“I took as long as was needed to explain it to him.”
Leaning back against my door, it clicks shut.
Shane stares at me from the bed, a book in hand. Its yellow cover faces me. His tablet is nowhere to be seen, and that fills me with hope that movie night is no longer on the cards.
“No tablet? What happened to you wanting to watch a movie?” I ask, trying hard to mask the quivering in my voice that makes me appear less frightened than I am.
I’d told Ambrose I was fine. At the time, I was, but being closed in a room with Shane alone makes my chest rise and fall a little faster.
“The old TV works.” He points to the flat black screen on the wall that hasn’t been switched on in years.
“It’s only showing a blank screen?”
“I found something more interesting.” Shane taps the aging pages in his book. “I figured we could look through this together first.”
“At what?” I cautiously crawl onto the bed and dip below the covers where Shane lies back against puffy pillows.
“Your mom’s diary. There are some interesting things in here.”
“Shane, you can’t read that.” I reach for the diary, but my arms are too short to get it when he extends his arm over the bed edge. “It’s personal.”
And private, and it belongs to my mother, who deserves to keep her secrets. Secrets she’d probably written about us—Ambrose and me, getting kidnapped, getting too close, being separated. All that damn guilt she talked about that’s been passed down to me.
The urge to find out if she ever found peace taunts me as I glance at the book. Then, I shake myself because the words in that book aren’t for my eyes, even if I did inherit them from Mom.
I shake the thought away, and meet Shane’s face in search of humanity, but all I see is excitement over the juicy gossip he thinks he’s found.
