Page 113 of Unravelling The Hitman: A BWWM Romance

“I will.”

We hung up and I shuffled to my bedroom to change. After, I brushed my teeth and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My face looked gaunt. Dark circles hung below my eyes and I looked way older than a woman in her twenties.

I spit out the toothpaste suds and cupped my cheeks. I’d need to put on a ton of makeup to hide what was going on here. The last thing my parents needed was to worry about me.

I washed my face and slumped back to my bedroom, slipping into the cold bed. Deacon visited me in my dreams again, but this time I didn’t fight it.

“I miss you,” I whispered.

Dream Deacon took me into his arms and hugged me. I melted in his embrace and cried tears of joy.

When sunshine tiptoed into my bedroom and woke me up the next day I found my pillow was damp and tear tracks had dried on my cheeks.

Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but what was the alternative if it didn’t? My heart kept tugging me back to Deacon, while my head screamed that trusting such a dangerous man would be akin to signing my own death certificate.

Who could say that Deacon didn’t have more enemies lined up to kill him? Put him in danger? Put me in danger?

Beyond that, he was a worldly man who’d experienced beautiful women in exotic places, and I was a simple woman who loved my little country and tried to live a quiet life.

If I risked it all, would the pain in my chest go away or would Deacon destroy me completely?

39

Deacon

I’d lost my mind. Completely. An Angel had visited me for a sweet and short moment. She broke me, claimed me and then she left.

I took another sip of my beer and tried to calm my wailing thoughts. The whicker chair creaked as I shifted. A harsh breeze yanked the leaves of the coconut trees like an angry wife tearing out the hair of her husband’s mistress. Moonlight sliced past the clouds, sharp enough to cut the sand.

My gaze drifted to the projector hanging from a hook on the rafters. The footage gleaming on the screen was silent, but the insects crackling a joyful sound behind it added its own kind of music.

I let the neck of my beer bottle slip to the crook of two fingers. The woman on the screen smiled and raised her hands for a high-five. Another pair of tiny hands slapped her palms.

My heart cracked and ached like an old house moaning in the night. I’d never felt this level of pain and nothing could sate it.

Except this.

Watching the old security footage of Angel moving around in the house, I could almost pretend that she hadn’t left. That she was still here. Or that she was coming back soon.

If I closed my eyes, I could feel the whisper-soft touch of her fingers on my chest, her breath on my neck, her scent on the wind. Then I’d open my eyes, see she wasn’t here, and get an insane urge to punch something.

Like I said.

I’d completely lost my mind.

Solitude.

It used to mean more than money to me, more than diamonds. Reid was all I’d needed. I’d been satisfied with the life we’d built here on this fortress of an island.

Women? I had no need for them and their games. Like Angel pointed out, there was always a willing body, always a woman eager to have a good time without any commitment.

I could prep the boat, sail to San Pedro and satisfy my wildest desires without having to spend a red cent on any level of seduction.

But, right now, I’d give all the money in the bank, liquefy my stocks, put my cigar shop on the market and sell my island if I could just have Angel back.

Had my love become an obsession? Or was this the underside of an emotion I’d never felt before?

It took restraint to stay here, on this island. Away from her. I did it, not because I wanted to, but because she’d made it clear that she didn’t want me.

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