Page 32 of Taunt Me (Dark Odyssey 2)

I can’t tell him last night was goodbye.

I don’t know how I can say it with words. I don’t know how I can look at him and form the words to tell him. It’s more painful than what I think I have to tell my family.

“I… um , I’m sorry,” I stutter.

“How? How is this possible?”

“Someone killed Antonio. Murdered him.”Someone… wow. That was an effortless lie. So effortless and shows I must be damn scared to lie to Gabe. Scared and wary.

“I tried to get you back. I did.” He bites the inside of his lip so hard I think he’s going to pierce the skin.

I can’t express to anyone what it means to hear him say that and more tears stream down my cheeks. “You did?”

“Of course. My brothers and I tried and Antonio came to the house and killed all the staff that worked for us. He was going to kill my parents and I…”

My hand flies to my mouth and I can’t stop myself from shaking.

“My God… Gabe,” I suck in a breath. What can I say?

Thank you?

I’m sorry?

It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t seem adequate enough or appropriate.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. That’s the best thing. The best words. Sorrow.

He shakes his head and touches my face again.

“Charlotte, there’s nothing to be sorry for. Not a damn thing. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry it wasn’t me who killed that son of a bitch. I’m sorry it wasn’t me. The only thing that stopped me was the threat on everybody. But it never stopped me from thinking up ways I could get you back. I was always thinking of something and then the years just passed me by.”

And… he still remembered me.

“You didn’t forget me?” I say that more to myself than to him but he shakes his head.

“Never.”

There’s so much to say to him. So much I truly want to tell him.

I’m so wrapped up though, in the tangle of everything going on inside me from emotion to desire, to bringing reason back to the forefront of my mind because ten years have passed and things are not the same.

He still feels like mine. At the same time he isn’t. He hasn’t belonged to me and I’m looking at him now thinking of how he was the first man and only man I’d ever been with until two days after I was taken and Antonio and his men raped me over and over again.

I’m looking at Gabe now and my heart wants to run to him and stay with him forever, tell him how lost I was and that his kisses will make it all better.

It’s reason and logic though, that steadies me from falling apart and allowing him to take me and lure me deeper into this world I want to escape.

There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to be with him. It was all I wanted. I think now though it was a fantasy I held as a girl.

I’m a woman now. One who’s been through so much. Too much and I don’t want to go back to who I was. I want to move forward, and that can’t be with him.

He has to know, and he has to forget me.

Besides what would he want with me?

Me, the woman who was seen as a thing in the house. Something to pass around and fuck then throw to the side until you get bored again. Or better yet make money from. I shift my weight from one foot to the next and he releases me.

“Gabe...” I begin and try to find the right words to say to him.

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