Page 157 of Sinful Desires

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But his questions spilled through me like water through broken glass.

My eyes landed on the tattoo inked on his neck. Even with my vision swimming, I could still read the words:À la vie, à la mort.

To life, to death.

He carried me out of the maze like I weighed nothing, my soaked dress clinging to both of us, my body cold and shivering against his warmth.

My lips brushed the side of his throat, more by accident than anything else. But once I was that close, I couldn’t stop myself.

So, I kissed him. Because I was drunk. Because I was hurting. Because he felt like something safe in a world that wasn’t.

My star in the darkness.

Later, I felt a bed under me. Clean sheets, warm air, the quiet hum of safety. His fingers traced my cheek, then my neck, rough but careful. Gentle, like he didn’t want to wake me. And then they disappeared.

I reached for them, but there was only air.

When I opened my eyes again, hours had passed. My head pounded like the world was trying to punish me for being still alive.

I called my driver and went home, still half asleep, my body heavy with regret and self-loathing.

I’d slept for two days after that, but his face stayed with me.

Blurry. Half-lit.

Like a dream I wasn’t meant to remember.

À dieu, mon étoile filante.

He had called me his shooting star.

And he was mine too.

Mon étoile dans l’obscurité.

Two fallen angels who had begged for death, but found each other instead.

Chapter

Thirty-Nine

“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges.Life is too short to be unhappy.”

? Roy T. Bennett

Scarlett

I wore blue like silence wears the sky

Kept my heart locked, didn’t ask why

Rooms full of people but no one saw

What loneliness does when it learns to draw

You haunted the ballroom like a sin I’d dreamt

Eyes that cut through everything I’d kept: You never touched me, but the room went still

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