Page 54 of Searching for Hope

I remember just staring at him and something stirring within me. Maybe it was affection. Maybe it was just drunken lust leftover from the night before. But maybe it was something more that we never got to explore. His body was bathed in the golden glow of morning light. There were tan lines across his unblemished skin. I’d laughed at the paleness of his butt cheeks.

He married me to save me, to save my daughter, but sometimes I wonder if it could have become more. We were friends. Best friends. But the intimacy of the night we’d shared changed the way I looked at things. Looked at him. He was no longer the boy who’d hidden under beds with me during thunderstorms. Now he was the man who’d muttered sweet nothings in my ear as he held me close. He was the man whose skin I’d run my tongue over, whose mouth had been entwined with mine.

Although still a little hungover, I’d hummed as I left the hotel apartment. We were on the third floor and from the street below I could see the curtains flapping in the breeze. It was a gloriously sunny day. Everything was bright with colors. Nothing was faded, nothing was muted or pastel. Everything was bold.

I want to say that something tingled at the base of my spine, that I had some sense or warning of what was to come, but I was blissfully unaware. Ette was sound asleep, cared for through the night by the nanny we’d hired, a Mrs Bellamy. Jericho was content. Unconscious but content. We were married. My chances of being able to keep her in the lawsuit filed against me by her father had increased significantly.

Life was good.

And then I was taken.

It was as simple as a bag shoved over my head as I was pushed into a van. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was long enough to change the course of my life forever.

After that, I was no longer Hope. I was a number. A body. A plaything and a toy. For days I was locked alone in a cold cell. I cried and I wailed but no one came. Not Jericho. Not the father of my child. Not the police. No one.

For a while I held onto the hope of rescue. But white knights exist only in fairy tales. Shining armor is nothing more than an illusion. And guardian angels can lose their wings.

chapter seventeen

JERICHO

She doesn’t talk to me the morning after I dragged her from the pool party. By the time I wake, she’s already untangled herself from my arms, the desperation of her actions from the night before long gone.

She’s remembered she hates me.

Slipping out of bed, she silently makes her way to the bathroom. My cock springs to life at the sight of her naked body, all curves and grace, but I can tell without her saying a word that the girl of last night is gone again, hidden behind doubt and fear and confusion.

She was so fucking beautiful in her aggression. Just thinking about the way she taunted me, dared me, makes me hard as steel. As the sound of the shower seeps through the door, I want to storm over and rip it off its fucking hinges. I want to press her against the wall of the shower and push inside her just to hear the sound of her gasp again.

She’s unabashed in the sounds she utters. She’s vocal and forceful, bold and brazen.

If she were any other girl, I’d be able to put the encounter to the side, not think about it, knowing it was nothing more than a drunken mistake. But with Berkley, I can’t. I can’t stop obsessing about every aspect of her. It’s driving me insane.

She is driving me insane.

She doesn’t talk on the trip home or in the days that follow. She acts as though she never threw herself at me. As though nothing happened at all. If I ask her a question, she answers it as bluntly as possible. Her eyes carry a sadness that wasn’t there before, and I know I’m to blame.

As furious as I was for the way she behaved at the party, I can’t blame her. She’s young. She offered herself to me and I threw it all back in her face by not telling her the truth she deserved to hear. If I had, maybe she would understand. If I had, maybe she would listen to me when I try to explain.

If I had, maybe she’d still be mine.

The one good thing that came out of that night was the invitation to attend an auction courtesy of Mr Gorman. There was acute underlying anticipation as I got myself ready. I’d attended auctions before, but I’d never been this close to getting it right. With Berkley’s help, I was finally getting somewhere. This would be like no other auction I’d attended. This wasn’t held in a darkened place, the sleazy underbelly of the world. No, this would be an extravaganza of wealth and power. And I was invited because I was on Everly Atterton’s arm.

I adjust my bowtie, feeling both ridiculous and superior. Like everything else in my life, I’m putting on a show.

Everything but Berkley.

Even though she spent such a short time here, my room seems emptier without her. My bed drowns in the memory of her. I smell her on my sheets. I remember the feel of her beneath me. I run my tongue over my lips and taste her.

I don’t know what to do with her now.

I don’t know how to make it right.

I don’t know who I am to her. Who she is to me.

I’ve made a fucking mess of all of it and I don’t how to put the pieces back together. I’m caught between a woman I love and a woman I need.

But tonight she can’t ignore me. I give my bowtie one final tug and walk down to the entrance of the Sanctuary to wait for Berkley. Her footsteps echo down the staircase only seconds after mine.

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