Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“And what did she do to punish you?” I can’t quite keep the dangerous edge from the question.
“You can’t hurt my mother either.”
I growl, then catch myself. “Fine. I won’t hurt anyone in your family. No matter how much they deserve to suffer.”
“Swear it.”
I narrow my eyes at her. I don’t want to agree to this blanket pardon of her loathsome relatives.
But she would be troubled by their suffering. She’s so soft-hearted and good to her core. She would shed tears even for her abusers, just like she said she cried over her rapist’s death.
I won’t allow the monsters who raised her to cause her one more shred of grief. And she would grieve them if I killed them for her. She would probably feel responsible.
I won’t do that to her.
“I swear I won’t hurt anyone in your family.”
She nods, accepting my promise.
“My mother’s punishments were erratic,” she admits. “Sometimes, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house for a week. Other times, a simple slap to the face was enough to satisfy her. There was no rational pattern to the severity of the consequences.”
“The chaos was designed to keep you on edge.” Her mother is a narcissistic piece of shit. I’d known as much after spending five minutes in her presence at Meadows’ wedding.
But learning the extent of her cruelty to my Abigail is enough to make me see red.
“Dane.” My name is laced with warning, and I realize my hand has fisted beneath hers.
I force my muscles to relax.
“I’m not in that house anymore,” she reminds me. “She can’t hurt me.”
“And you’ll never step foot inside it again.” I try to keep the ring of command from my tone, but I don’t quite succeed.
“I don’t intend to.”
“I’ll protect you from them,” I vow. “I’ll make sure they never bother you again.”
“You can’t guarantee that,” she counters, but she doesn’t seem troubled by my fierce countenance. “I can handle them.”
I remember the way she wilted like a cut flower in her mother’s presence at the wedding.
“You don’t have to handle them alone. Not anymore.”
She stares at me for a while, and I realize she’s not going to respond to my intense declaration.
“We should get some sleep,” she says instead. “I’ll be here if you have another nightmare and want to talk.”
I marvel at how she’s softened toward me.
Maybe she won’t hate me forever.
Maybe she’ll love me again one day.
17
ABIGAIL
I’m safe now, Dane.
I can hardly believe I said those words to him last night. They’d been automatic, an irrepressible urge to comfort him in the wake of his nightmare about losing his sister.
But had I meant it?
Yesterday, he confessed that he would die without me. The man who fell to his knees and literally offered me his heart wouldn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t be capable of it.
Nothing will erase the pain he’s caused me. Nothing can undo the stalking and kidnapping. The lies and the heartbreak.
But I don’t think he’ll hurt me again.
When he first brought me to England, I railed at him that he was tormenting me, that he was my own personal monster. He hadn’t listened. Convincing him that he’d wronged me seemed impossible.
Now, he’s apologized. He acknowledged that he caused me immense pain. And it was so much more than a simple I’m sorry.
I’ll be better for you, Abigail. I will never be worthy of you, but I’ll be better. I swear.
And last night, he was so raw. He told me how he watched his twin sister die because of his father’s carelessness. He welcomed my comforting touch, as though he needed to feel me.
I thought he was a complete psychopath. But he does seem to feel something for me. Maybe it’s every bit as cruelly possessive and obsessive as he claimed. That doesn’t change the fact that my ravaged heart feels tethered to his by a gossamer thread.
We both have emotional wounds inflicted by our families. It was one of the first things that bonded me to him.
That had nothing to do with his stalking, nothing to do with the thrilling fear I experienced around him—the fizzy sensation I’d mistaken for lust.
This part of our connection has always been real: we’ve both been subject to abuse.
It made me kind, but it made him cold.
I never want to hurt anyone the way my parents hurt me. But Dane seems to have shut off his feelings entirely to avoid the pain.
He was only five years old when he watched his sister die. I can’t imagine the psychological damage that inflicts on a child.
“What are you thinking about?” Dane’s eyeing me almost warily.
I realize I’ve fallen a few steps behind him, and I’ve been staring at him like I can peer into his mind if I just look hard enough.
I cut my gaze away and study the stunning landscape. We’re walking along a vaguely marked footpath through an idyllic field dotted with sheep.