Page 89 of Relentless Sinner
I jump in the shower quickly and when I get back out to the room I notice she’s lying on her side facing the wall.
She turns her head slightly to look at me, then looks away again. I’m glad she’s given up pretending.
I get in the bed and slide in next to her. Instantly her body goes rigid, back to that tense state.
“Am I your prisoner again?” Her voice, still and soft, finally pierces the endless silence between us that has been festering like an open sore oozing blood.
I turn and look at her. She’s still got her back to me but in the silver moonlight I can see her breathing has picked up.
Eve’s words come back to haunt me.Do you want a business arrangement or a wife?
I want Gabriella. That’s my answer. But right now that answer seems to sit somewhere in the gray area where all that exists is conflicting desires.
The air becomes charged with more tension the longer I wait to answer her question. There are several things I want to say, all of which she won’t like, so I decide to follow my head with the same answer I gave her weeks ago. “That depends on you, Krasota.”
She looks at me now and I can tell she’s been crying. “What does that even mean for me now?”
She’s right. She’s in limbo because she fucked up her previous plan of making it look like she was doing what she was told. She knows the trust is broken and I’ll be more careful now. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk about it some other time.”
It’s best we don’t talk about it now.
I don’t want her to hate me any more than she already does.
Chapter Twenty
Gabriella
My life is an absolute clusterfuck...
That’s why everything feels like it’s falling apart and nothing is as I hoped it would be.
I feel more doomed than ever and I only have myself to blame. I knew in my gut that plan would never work, but I took the risk anyway. All I ended up doing was screwing myself over.
I gaze ahead at the flock of birds flying amongst the trees and rest my hands on the stone surface of the balcony. It's almost lunchtime.
I've been standing here on the little terraced area outside the bedroom for the last few hours.
This is the place where I landed myself in a trap that I never even knew existed.
I remember that night so well. I’d fallen asleep out here. Jaxon came out and saw that I’d been readingWuthering Heights. Little did I know that he'd seen so much more.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Jaxon would keep an ace up his sleeve to use on me. Everything with him is strategy.
You can’t play games with men like that. They’re always, always one step ahead. And they seem to know exactly how to play you at your own game.
He must have been saving that leverage to use on me at the right time—which is now.
I keep wondering when he figured out Natasha’s whereabouts. I know it
doesn't really matternow, but my mind keeps trying to do the math.
It wants to know whether he knew where Natasha was throughout the time we were together.
The answer for better or worse is just another useless piece of information my brain has decided to lumber itself with, but not knowing bothers me.
Almost as much as worrying over what he’ll do with that information.
He left before I woke up this morning. It was probably a good thing because I didn't want to be around him with that amplified state of angst between us.