Page 111 of Sinful Desires
I hadn’t expected someone kind.
He’d wandered through my place, took one look at my room with its blackout curtains, half-melted candles, and shelves stuffed with books and mess, and said, “This looks like Sabrina the Teenage Witch gave up halfway through a summoning spell.”
Then he’d sat on my bed and told me the truth—he was gay. He hadn’t wanted this arrangement either. His agency had forced it, just like mine. And for a second, I hadn’t felt alone.
Not safe. Not better. But not completely alone, either.
“Sorry, Nic,” I muttered, sitting down on the sand. It clung to my palms, gritty and warm.
I looked up. The sky was full of stars. Millions of them, just burning brightly.
“It’s a strange kind of hollow,” I said. “Selling yourself. Doing everything except what you actually want. And telling yourself that’s enough because there’s no other choice.”
He lowered himself beside me, arms resting on his knees. “I know. Thank God I have Matthew to go home to. He makes it bearable.” He paused, uncertain. “Have you heard about?…?him?”
I flinched. Not enough to notice, just enough to feel it.
Him.
I didn’t say his name. Didn’t let my mind go there. Didn’t let it wander to his hands, his voice, the way his mouth had felt on mine.
I didn’t let myself remember the way his eyes had burned through me, or how his words used to sit warmly against my skin. I didn’t let my heart ache. I didn’t let it hope.
He didn’t fucking exist.
He had let them take me. The man who had sworn he’d protect me. Who’d sworn I was safe with him. He’d abandoned me.
If I’d hated him before, now I wanted him buried. Or maybe just gone.
Gone from me, gone from this life, gone from the part of my memory that still stung when I breathed too deeply.
Nicholas only knew because he’d heard Victoria bring him up again and again. Begging me to reach out, to let him explain.
As if I needed his version of the story. As if I didn’t already know the truth. There was nothing he could say that would make a year of silence feel less empty.
A year. Twelve whole fucking months.
Not a call. Not a letter. Not even a message through someone else. He didn’t have to tell the truth. He just had to show up.
And he hadn’t.
And that silence was louder than anything he’d ever said. I hated him for it.
I always would.
When I’d gotten out of rehab, I thought I’d stopped waiting for him. I’d told myself it was done. That I was done.
But when I stepped back into my apartment and shut the door behind me, something small and pathetic had still looked toward the hallway, half expecting him to be there.
Not to hold me. Not to speak. Just to stand there with his hands behind his back, jaw locked, eyes hard—like nothing had changed when everything had.
He wasn’t there.
My father said there was no need for a bodyguard anymore. Said I wouldn’t be doing any public appearances without Nicholas and his team. That their people would keep me safe now.
So, I made a decision.
I’d locked that door. Thrown the key into whatever deeply buried part of me still wanted him. And I hadn’t looked back since.
