Page 93 of Seduced By You

I didn’t react, didn’t acknowledge that I’d heard her at all.Manners, Annaleesa,Maman would scold if she were here. My eyes burned behind my closed lids. I craved to see her, to feel her lips press to my forehead, to hear her voice and smell her perfume. Floral, like lavender but subtler. Yet even now, after a near-death experience, missing a body part, and with my face in tatters, I couldn’t bring myself to call them.

What the hell was wrong with me?

A single rap sounded on the door. I didn’t even bother to open my eyes to see who it was.

“Lee.” Kadon’s warm hand closed over mine. He must’ve gotten frustrated waiting for permission to see me and took matters into his own hands. Unless the nurse had told him that if he was waiting for me to approve his visit, he’d wait forever.

I kept my eyes shut. “Where’s Dash?”Please let him be alive.I couldn’t take it if he hadn’t made it. My poor innocent cat.

“Audrey’s got him.”

A breath whooshed out of me.Dash is alive.

“Is he okay?” I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes and look at Kadon. If I saw pity, it would kill me. Fingers of depression were already reaching out, like black souls, all too ready to suck me into the darkness of their world. I didn’t need a shove over the edge.

“He’s fine.”

Silence. Five seconds passed, then ten. I should say something. What, though? Kadon wasn’t the one lying in a hospital bed, so he must’ve escaped the accident unscathed. Lucky him.

“Lee.” He applied pressure to my hand. “Look at me, please.”

The desperation in his voice got to me. I opened my eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Lee. This is all my fault.” He held my forearm in a tender grip. “I don’t know what happened. I lost control. Forgive me, please.”

“Do you want to see it?” The words spewed out of me in raw, bitter tones. I pointed at the dressing covering up the hideous stitches that, after removal, would leave an even more hideous scar.

“You should probably leave the dressing in place. Let it heal.”

Right. Of course he didn’t want to see it. Why would he? Bad enough that I’d almost puked when I’d seen it. When I got home, I’d smash every mirror in my house so I never had to look at myself ever again.

“I’m tired, Kadon. You should go.”

His head snapped back as if on a piece of elastic. “Go? I’m not leaving you.”

“I don’t want you here.”

His face crumpled. I should feel something. Sympathy, sorrow, contrition for the pain I’d caused.

I felt none of those things.

Despair streamed shapelessly through my mind, a cancer eroding everything it touched. Life as I’d known it had ended the moment we’d crashed.

Ugh.Stop being overdramatic. So what if my face had a scar that I’d have to live with for the rest of my life? I was alive. I’d survived a plunge down a mountain. Things could be so much worse.

Right now, though, none of that mattered. Maybe it would in a few days when I’d had time to come to terms with the gash that ran the length of my cheekbone, but for now, I deserved to wallow in misery. Didn’t I?

“Lee, you’re killing me. I need you to forgive me. I can’t… I can’t—”

“I can’t deal with your issues and my own, Kadon. You’ll have to figure out a way to manage your guilt. It’s not like you’re new at it.”

It was a low blow. Even through numbness that had invaded my body, I winced.

“I’ll come and see you tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother.”

Air whistled through his teeth. “You don’t mean that.”

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