Page 3 of Savage Heart

No one’s called me that name in so long that just hearing it makes me want to burst into tears. Pushing away the need to cry, I shake my head again. “It’s Sabrina now. I guess your uncle liked that name, so he gave it to me. Sabrina Marshall.”

Without me asking him to come in, he steps across the threshold and gently closes the door behind him, as if this is as much his home as it is mine. It’s like he takes up all the oxygen in the room simply by being him. Like I can’t get enough air into my lungs now that he’s in here with me.

“Why are you here now?” I choke out as he takes a step toward me and then another.

I want to add after all this time, but I don’t. I can’t say those words for some reason.

Alaric takes another step toward me and stops. With a smile, he answers, “I have something for you. For your graduation, I mean.”

“You know I’m graduating? Have you known I’ve been here in this apartment the whole time?”

My emotions spin inside me, whirling from sad to angry when he nods his answer to my question. “You knew the whole two years and never once came to see me? And now you show up with what? A graduation card and a twenty-dollar bill? Thanks. Feel free to leave it on the table on your way out.”

I want him to say something so I can lash out, but he stays silent, simply staring at me. We stand there like that for what seems like forever until he slides his hand into his coat pocket and pulls out a tiny black box.

“Seemed only right to replace the one I took from you, and what better time to do it than now?” he says in a low voice.

When he hands the box to me, I don’t know what to say. I want to be angry with him, but he just gave me a gift.

“Open it. I think you’ll like it.”

I slowly lift the lid off the box and see a gold cross on a necklace nestled in white silk inside. He bought me a gold cross because he took mine that day.

As tears fill my eyes, I look up at him and ask, “Do you still have my old one?”

He nods and stuffs his hand into his pocket. A second later, he pulls out the gold cross that fell off in the shower at his villa in Italy. The necklace is nowhere to be found, but the cross is shinier than ever.

“You kept my gold cross all this time? Why?”

Alaric shrugs. “Because it was all I had of you. I carry it everywhere with me.”

Tears stream out of my eyes at his confession that he hasn’t forgotten me either, and I cover my face with my hands to hide how much hearing those words means to me. “I was sure you never even thought of me these past two years.”

“I told you I wouldn’t forget you, Sienna.”

The sound of my true name coming out of his mouth makes me smile, like a memory from long ago that never fails to bring happiness. “It’s been so long since anyone called me that.”

Walking over to me, he sighs as his hands cradle my face. “I’m sorry I didn’t come before now.”

I look up into his dark eyes and a million questions race through my mind. “Why didn’t you? If you were thinking of me, did you think I wasn’t doing the same about you?”

He doesn’t answer for a long moment, but finally he says, “I didn’t think someone like me had any place in your world.”

“And I didn’t have any place in yours?”

Alaric nods, swallowing hard so his Adam’s apple drops and then rises again. “I am what I am, Sienna. You deserved a chance to have a fresh start here. But I made sure to keep tabs on you. I’ve never been very far away, and if you ever needed me, I would have come before now.”

I lower my head as tears fill my eyes again. “I did need you. Not to protect me but because I missed you.”

“Well, you seem to have done fine. You’re only a couple days away from graduation, and you moved on, so I assumed you didn’t need me.”

His words come out ragged and choppy, and when I look up at him, I see his jaw clenched. Is he actually upset I moved on after all that time?

Anger surges through me, so I push my hands against his chest and step back away. “I needed you, Alaric! Was I supposed to just sit around in this Yale location of Chez Helix and simply wait for you? You knew where I was this whole time and never came to me. I didn’t know where you were, because if I did, I damn sure would have taken the opportunity to see you.”

My outburst leaves him confused, and he simply stands there shaking his head. “I don’t want to fight you on this, Sienna. I had to do what I did. I won’t apologize for that.”

“And I won’t apologize for wanting to be cared about. If you didn’t want me to meet someone, you should have come around. You didn’t, so I have a man in my life now.”