I rub my aching forehead. I rush through the rest, tired of reliving the pain. “I called my father after that. And he worked his magic. Of course, it wasn’t too hard when Alyssa’s family didn’t want the truth known any more than my family did. It would’ve ruined them. Her fetishes, an abusive relative. Nasty stuff. So the bad guy got off and lived to fight another day. The end.”
The silence is deafening. I don’t bother to look over at Samantha. I don’t want to see the horror, the judgment, the revulsion on her face. Resigned to the damage that my confession has done, I put the Rover in drive and I pull back onto the highway.
Neither of us speaks the rest of the way to Samantha’s. I’m lost in the past and Samantha is…well, I have no idea what she’s thinking. And at the moment, I can’t manage to care. I’m consumed with remembered guilt. And fear. And pain. And regret.
As I’m pulling onto the street in front of Samantha’s house, she finally breaks the silence. “Is that why you chose psychiatry?”
I’m weary. I’m tired of answering questions and revisiting the most horrific time of my life. “No. I chose psychiatry to understand why I became obsessed with that which had caused me so much pain. After Alyssa, I sought out women who liked what she liked. It was all I could think about for years afterward. I chose psychiatry so I could try and help myself. So I could understand it and then stop it.”
“And did you?”
“No. I have my theories, and I’m in control, but there’s no fixing me. At least not that I’ve found. All it’s taught me is that there’s a monster inside me. And I can’t let him out.”
I pull to a stop, leaving the engine idling. I just want Samantha to get out of my vehicle so I can get the hell out of here. Put this whole night, this whole experience behind me. It’s just now that I realize I’m in no position to help anyone else. I’m the most damaged and twisted of all.
I jerk when I feel the touch of Samantha’s cool, smooth fingers on my cheek. I turn to look at her. Her eyes are full of both love and pity, neither of which I can stand the sight of right now.
“That’s all I wanted from you. To know you, to know the truth.”
I look into her liquid smoke eyes as I reach for her wrist. I see the hurt register in them when I fling her hand away. “Congratulations. You got what you wanted. And now you know why you’ll never be enough for me,” I say harshly, wanting to make this as painful as I possibly can so that both of us will move on and never look back. “Now get out.” Her face shows stunned disbelief. “Out!”
She flinches like I slapped her and it stabs at my gut. I never wanted to hurt her. That’s why I warned her. I warned her because this is who I am. It’s what I do. I hurt people. It’s my curse. And that will never change.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - Samantha
Mason stares down into my eyes. There’s a peculiar light in the pale, lime green depths, one I’ve never seen there before. It makes my heart flutter and my chest ache.
“You know that when I do this, when I make you like me, there’s no turning back. This is not the movies. You can’t kill your maker and become mortal again. You will be like me; you will be linked to me for all the days of eternity.”
“I know,” I assure him, biting back the words that explain how badly I want that, the words that would let Mason know that he’s all I’ll ever want. No matter how long forever is.
“What’s mine is mine. I will never let you go. And I will never share you.”
I know he’s warning me, trying one last time to scare me away, but what he doesn’t realize is that it’s no use. I’ve been his from the first night I saw him. My only hope is that I can make him all mine. No one else’s.
“And maybe one day, I won’t have to share you either.” It slips out before I can stop it, but not before I can see the sadness come into Mason’s eyes.
“That’s not the man I am, Daire. I wish I could be that for you, but it’s not my nature. I’ll love you all the days of the world, but I can’t promise to love only you.”
Tears are coursing down my cheeks. For the first time since I began writing so many years ago, I can’t find the happy ending. I can’t show my characters how to make it work without one of them destroying the other. Despite the hopelessness of my past, I have always nurtured the tiny seed that, one day, there would be a happy ending for me, that one day I would find true love and everything would be all right.
But here I am in “one day.” I’ve found true love, yes. But everything’s not all right.
Alec’s feelings for me aren’t the same. He might care about me, deep down in places he won’t even admit to himself, but he doesn’t feel what I feel. If he did, there’s no way he could have walked away.
And he did.
Alec Brand simply walked out of my life.
Well, drove. That night, when he drove me home in his Range Rover and dropped me off, was the last time I saw him. And that was eight weeks ago. Well almost. Fifty-four long days and fifty-five even longer nights. Not that I’m counting.
You’re totally counting!
But who could blame him? I was totally out of line, goading him the way I did. If he’d wanted to tell me, he would’ve. And I should’ve respected that. He’s obviously tormented about his past, and forcing him to tell me about it was wrong. Just wrong.
So am I really surprised that he walked away?
No. Not really. I’d have done the same thing if he’d pushed me like that. And my past, though terrible, is nothing like his. And he’s carrying it around, all that guilt, like a thousand pound weight.
Every day.
The phone rings. My heart still speeds up every time I hear it, but not nearly as much as it used to. After a few weeks of not hearing from Alec, it began to penetrate my stupid head that he’s not coming back, that he won’t be calling. But still, I react a little bit even now. And just like always, I’m filled with disappointment when I see that it’s not him.
This time, it’s Chris.
“Hello?” I try not to sound so mopey, but there’s very little I can hide from Chris, no matter how hard I try.
“Still in a funk, huh?”
I sigh. But she sees right through me. As I suspected.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Just being polite.”