Page 160 of Sinful Desires
He turned his face to the sea.
“We were in Seattle once. Incognito. He took me to one of those private theaters where you rent the room and pick your own movie. He choseThe Perks of Being a Wallflower.The one my father showed me when I was a teenager. It’s the reason I became an actor. It was the first time a film made me feel seen.”
I nodded. I knew what that meant.
“After the credits, he said he had one more surprise. He handed me a box, and inside was a first edition of the book. He’d written this tiny message on the first page, something about how he hoped I’d never stop chasing my dreams, no matter how much it cost.”
I smiled, and so did he. Softly, like the memory still lived inside him.
“But that’s not what did it. It wasn’t the gift. It was the way he listened. The way he remembered what mattered to me. My dreams. My fears. My ugly little wounds. He didn’t try to fix them. He wanted to carry them with me.”
I stared out at the fading sun, the sky going gold at the edges.
Because I understood.
That was the thing. The moment when you realized it wasn’t about being saved. It was about someone choosing to sit with you in the dark, and never letting go.
Je t’aime, Scarlett.
“Why?” he asked, tickling my sides. “You hiding a secret lover from me?”
I laughed, wiping the last of the tears off my cheeks.
“No. Just thinking about love. And how life sucks at times.”
And how sometimes, you didn’t realize you’d been loved until it had already carved itself into you.
He stood, brushing the sand off his pants.
I followed, doing the same to my dress as we started walking back toward the villa.
“Life’s a bitch either way. Might as well learn how to bite back.”
Chapter
Forty
“I feel like a part of my soul has loved you since the beginning of everything. Maybe we’re from the same star.”
?Emery Allen
Théo
I knocked three times, my throat tight and chest heavy. Not from nerves, but from the pressure of everything she remembered now pressing straight into my bones.
The villa was quiet. Too quiet.
Her friend had gone out with his co-stars hours ago. It was just me, her, and the ghosts pacing the hall.
I’d been pacing the shoreline for hours, salt biting my skin, sand grinding in my teeth. The urge to throw myself into the ocean and vanish clawed at me.
But the thought of leaving her alone?
Not a fucking chance.
When the door opened, she looked up at me. Her eyes widened, breath catching in her throat. She clutched the sweater tighter around her waist, holding it like a barrier, as if fabric could protect her from me.
As if what she’d seen in my eyes last night wasn’t the truth she’d been running from her entire life. That someone could want her for everything she was, not for the polished mask the world made her wear.
