Page 32 of Velvet Thorns
“I didn’t come because I missed you. I came because I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to suffer.”
“Watching you for ten years without being able to touch you or hold you… to tell you I’m sorry…” His voice cracks. “That’s what real suffering looks like, Shannen. It’s been pure fucking torture knowing you were out there building a life that had no room for me in it. I wanted to disappear, but I couldn’t stop watching. I didn’t know how to let you go. I still don’t.”
“Jesus, Phoenix.” I set the glass down, my hands trembling. “What the hell do you mean you’ve been watching me?”
He tilts his head, and there’s something unsettling in the way he studies me, like he’s trying to decide exactly how much truth I can actually handle.
“Will you run?”
“What?”
“If I tell you everything, are you going to run from me?”
“Should I?”
“Probably,” he says calmly, but his eyes are sayingI need you to stay more than I need to breathe.
I let out a slow, shaky breath, knowing I’ve come too far to turn back now, even though this isn’t going remotely as planned.
“I’ll listen.”
Chapter 9
SHANNEN
“I played football in college.Remember I told you that? I could’ve gone pro. I had scouts calling, contracts on the table, and the whole fucking golden-boy dream was laid out in front of me, but I didn’t want it. I couldn’t stomach the idea of living that life while you were out there thinking I’d forgotten you existed. None of it mattered if you weren’t there to see me win.”
“So you just quit?”
“I found something else. Something I was good at, and that gave me purpose in a way football never did.”
“What did you do?”
“Hacking, surveillance, digital forensics. I’ve been building back doors into systems, breaking into places I had no right to be. Emails, GPS tracking, security cameras—you name it, I’ve been inside it.”
“You gave up everything for that?”
“I gave up everything for you… I’ve had eyes on you since the day you walked away, pretty girl, and I don’t regret a single second ofit. Sure, it was harder when I was still playing football, but every moment I wasn’t on that field belonged to you.”
I shake my head slowly, nausea rolling through me. “You didn’t do any of this for me. You did it because you needed to feel less like the monster you became.”
“I did it because I love you.”
“No, you don’t,” I bite out. “You don’t even know what that word means.”
His steel-colored eyes hold my gaze. “Don’t say that. You don’t get to tell me what I felt or what I still feel. I love you, Shannen; I always have, and I wouldn’t have done any of this if I didn’t.”
“You mean stalking me? Breaking into my life? Watching me without my consent? If that’s love, Phoenix, then I hope to god I never feel it.”
“You do feel it. You just don’t want to.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I feel like my entire body is coming apart, like my own skin has forgotten how to hold me together and is ready to give up on me entirely. “I don’t love you, and I sure as shit don’t want you. Fuck. Let that sink in and move the hell on already.”
He nods like he’s listening, but nothing in his face says he accepts a single word I’ve said. “Can I ask you something?”
I shrug, too far gone to fake control anymore. I’m unraveling fast, and he knows it.
“If I went downstairs and brought a woman back to this room… could you watch her touch me?”
