Page 218 of Sinful Desires
But in her private dressing room, everything stilled.
She sat in front of the mirror, eyes closed, legs crossed, breathing like she was bracing for a hit.
“Théo,” she said, voice so soft it nearly drowned beneath the static in my ear, “I need you to promise me something.”
My brows pulled in, and I moved toward her, instinctively placing my hands on her tense shoulders. She exhaled a shaky breath under my touch.
“Tell me,mon amour.”
She opened her eyes and met mine through the mirror.
“Promise me that after tonight?…?you’ll help me disappear.”
Disappear?
My chest tightened. “What?”
She stood up slowly and turned to face me, her fingers hooking through my belt to pull me closer.
Her face was bare. Honest. Cracked open.
“I can’t do it anymore,” she whispered. “I told you, Mister LeRoy. I’m done. With all of it. I want out. I want to remember who I was before the cameras, before the contracts, before I belonged to everyone and no one at the same time.”
Her voice shook, her eyes glassy.
“No human should be split open by this much noise. This collision of love and hatred, voices clawing at me, praise too heavy for a heart to hold, venom too bitter for a soul to survive.”
Her hand curled around the back of my neck as she rested her forehead against mine.
“I want to be free, Théo. I want silence. I want to know what it feels like to laugh without hearing it played back in a gossip clip. I want to cry and not see it turned into a headline. I want to exist without being dissected.”
A tear rolled down her cheek, and she didn’t wipe it away.
“I’m only human, but they sculpted me into a statue no one could love without destroying. No one should be this seen and this alone. It’s not a gift, Théo. It’s a curse carved into my skin.”
She took my hand and placed it against her heart.
“I want to dance without eyes. I want to sing only for myself. I want to run barefoot through lavender fields where no one knows my name. I want to swim and sleep and love and laugh until it hurts.”
Her fingers traced my face like they hadthatnight in Fontaine.
“I want to live. Not as Scarlett Harper, the myth. But as Scarlett. The girl you found in the dark. The one you saved before she even knew she was drowning.”
Her lips brushed mine.
“I want to disappear, Théo. Hand in hand with you. Leave everything behind and start over where no one knows our names.”
My arms locked around her waist as her lips brushed my skin.
I swallowed her breath, a soft groan catching in my chest as she leaned back and cupped my face.
“Will you run away with me, Théo?”
Chapter
Fifty-Two
“I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.”
