The events of the previous day came rushing back. I should have felt regret, or at the very least, confusion. Instead, all I felt was a strange, warm contentment that frightened me more than anything else.
Like the fact that I’d just lost my virginity to him.
I thought back to how he had shielded his sisters as we fled the boutique, placing himself between that gunman and me without a moment’s hesitation. How fierce and protective he had been, not just of them, but me. I remembered the gentleness in his touch last night, how he had taken such care with me, without asking for anything in return.
I thought about how comfortable it was to lie in his arms, and how easy it would be to fall into a pattern like this, day after day.
And that’s when I felt a cold whisper of warning in a small, forgotten corner of my heart. All these thoughts, these memories, they were leading me down a dangerous path where the lines no longer remained clear.
I couldn’t have that, not without losing myself in the process. Arko had kidnapped me. I had a whole other life before he came along, which was no longer mine to claim.
What I was doing, in falling for this man, was outright dangerous.
I couldn’t fall for him. I wouldn’t.
With a racing heart, I gingerly slipped out of his arms, careful not to wake him, as I grabbed my clothes and made way for the door.
Chapter 15 - Arko
The morning after the night Beatrice made that irreversible decision to climb into my bed, I woke up to find empty, cold sheets. With eyes still closed, I reached for her across the bed, wondering if she’d drifted away in her sleep…but no.
She wasn’t there.
I hadn’t expected to feel the unnatural sense of longing that filled me then. The disappointment stayed with me when I stepped out of bed, showered, and went downstairs for breakfast, only to learn she’d already eaten.
I hadn’t thought much of it, then. I thought that maybe she just couldn’t sleep, maybe she needed time and space to think and recalibrate what happened. She did, after all, make me the first man she ever slept with.
Looking at our backstory, that shit was complicated enough.
But then I realized, over the course of two days, that she wasn’t avoiding me. If she’d held regrets or wanted to reverse that night, she would have kept me at arm’s length while she cleared her head.
Yet, she always stayed when I walked into a room, making absent-minded efforts at conversations and hardly hearing a word I said. I knew then that there was something on her mind and that it had very little to do with the night we had sex.
Later that evening, when we sat down for dinner, a quiet silence filled the room. All I could hear was the quiet scrape of fork against knife, and I decided that I had to know what was up with her.
”Beatrice?”
She looked up, her eyes refocusing like she’d drifted off again.
”Penny for your thoughts?”
She gave me a pained smile, then reluctantly shook her head. I hated that she felt she couldn’t tell me what bothered her so much.
”Come on,” I shrugged. “You haven’t been yourself lately. Let me see if I can help.”
She snorted and put down her fork. “I doubt that,” she said, but even then, I saw her look at me again with hope, as though she was praying for a miracle.
“I mean it.” I tilted my head. “Tell me what’s up?”
”Okay,” she said hesitantly, her eyes flickering to mine. “It’s just…I miss my brothers.”
I stilled, not knowing if I could hear more. I wanted her happy, but her brothers weren’t my favorite subjects.
”I’ve been here three months, Arko. I miss my family.”
”I’m sure you do.” I tried not to frown.
”Can I see them?” Her voice came out small, hopeful. I felt the world around me shift, my vision narrowing on her face. Of all the things I thought she’d have said, that wasn’t it.
