Page 110 of Betrayed in the Dark
I swallow hard as my fingers tuck between the opening and lift the cover to reveal…
My heart stops beating.
Everything around me blurs as I stare at an engagement ring.
A beautiful, delicate oval ring with a thin band covered in evenly spaced-out diamonds.
“It’s stunning,” I whisper in awe, envisioning this ring on my finger instead of the ghastly one currently residing in its place.
And then it hits me…
This ring is for someone.
Someone whoisn’tme.
Swiftly, I drop the ring back in the drawer and slam it shut, my chest heaving as if I had just run a full-on marathon.
My knees shake, and a tremor travels through me, forcing me to sit on the side of the bed before I collapse to the floor.
As much as I would like to convince myself Eli got this for me, there’s just no way that he did. It’s not possible, and it wouldn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t get me an engagement ring, not when he knew I was engaged to someone else.
My heart feels as if it’s cracking, splitting forcefully in two.
He loves someone else.
I lie back on the bed, my palms pressing against my chest. My heart is beating so loudly that it drowns out everything else around me. I turn to my side, burying my face into his pillow. His familiar scent only makes my eyes blur with an onslaught of tears as my hand rubs over the ache in the center of my chest.
What did I expect?
For him to remain single for the rest of his life while I marry Alastor?Yes,I admit to myself selfishly.
I grip the pillow, curling into a fetal position.
But if he’s in love with someone else, why would he be sleeping with me? Was everything he said to me a bunch of lies to get what he wanted—revenge for me being engaged to another man? Why would he play with my heart and make me think there was ever a chance for us when there never was?
Because you’ve been doing the same thing to him.
“But I didn’t mean to,” I breathe out through tears, fighting back a sob that takes over my whole body from my head to my toes.
Anger begins to swirl with the sadness inside me, creating a ball of anxiety I can’t control.
How could he do this to me?
I signed over my life for his, even after that damn letter he sent me, the one I’ve been purposely trying so hard to forget about these past few weeks, the one with four words that were burned into my soul, and he does—
He doesn’t know what you did to save him.
“He doesn’t know, and he can never know,” I whisper, wiping away the tears that crawl down my cheeks.
I hide my face in my hands, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders becoming unbearable.
The only person I have a right to be mad at is myself.
But I wouldn’t change anything I did.
In fact, I’d do it all over again if it meant he gets to spend the rest of his life living while I spend the rest of mine surviving.
Because that’s what you do when you love someone: you sign your life over to the devil to save them from hell.
