“Come on, little girl.”Towering over her, my tone was anything but loving.Frustration was merging with my numbing sense of impotency, making me irritable as well as concerned.“Enough of this.I have to get on that boat in the morning, and we both know it.”
My gaze flitted to the clock on my nightstand, the numbers flashing there only amplifying my unease.
“Do you hear me?”Grabbing her hand, I squeezed her fingers roughly as I perched on the bed at her side.“I bet you can.”I leaned closer, breathing in her alluring scent as I grazed a kiss on her jaw.
She was so fucking gorgeous; the sun that I had learnt to orbit around.Why hadn’t I told her more?Why hadn’t I insisted she worship my cock in the shower even when she’d seemed consumed about proceedings with the ICC?Nothing about the judge’s demands had changed the way I felt about her, yet I’d allowed our growing anxiety to quell our usual passions.
In that moment, a well of regret opened up inside me, threatening to suck me into the abyss any hope of ever looking into Caroline’s eyes and making love to her again.It was true that the doctor hadn’t intimated there was anything deeply worrying about her condition, but what did he truly know?Honestly, he hardly even seemed qualified.
Wouldn’t it be much more like the depravity of our thwarted tale thus far if the woman I loved slipped away peacefully before I even had the chance to carry out the ICC’s scheme?
I caught my breath at the paralyzing idea of losing her.What would I have in my life then except wreckage and regret?
Wouldn’t that bleak landscape be exactly what I deserved?
“Whatever this is, wake up!”Dread unfurled in my veins, making each new breath painful to inhale.“Wake up, and we’ll talk.Whatever it is, little girl, I’m here.I’ll make it better.”
Staring at her face, I half expected to see her eyes flutter open at my command, but perhaps unsurprisingly, my instructions didn’t filter past her unconsciousness.
The burgeoning sense of alarm expanded, stretching around me as though its plan was to cut off my air supply altogether.
“Caroline.”There was desperation laced in my voice as I spat out her name.“I can’t go unless I know you’re okay, butI haveto go.”
Emotion caught in my throat as I articulated my quandary, forcing me to heave in another excruciating breath.
“You know I can’t leave you like this.”I wiped the pointless tears from my eyes, disgusted with myself for the futile show of feeling.
How were my fucking tears going to help her?She needed a man, not a sobbing mess.
“How the fuck has this happened?”Glancing around the suite, my brow furrowed as I tried to recollect.
Not so long before, my life had run like clockwork; everything was ordered and, I’d thought, rewarding, but looking back, I could see I hadn’t really been living at all.I’d been going through the motions every day, repeating the same tedious sequence of events, like a dancer performing the same tired routine each day.It had taken the devotion, and ultimately, the defiance of my little girl to order my transformation.In a haze of lustful feelings, she’d commanded that I leave my post, insisted that I flee my country, and demanded I take us across Europe in pursuit of freedom.
How the hell had she managed to achieve all that?
Fixing my attention back on her beautiful face, the answer was blindingly obvious.
Because she loves me.
“Caroline.”I smiled sadly, sniffing back fresh tears.No one had ever affected me that way before.No other woman had even been close to triggering tears, and there had been few men I’d have given the time of day to, let alone given up my entire career for.“Don’t you dare leave me.You need to wake up, little girl.”
Leaning close, I rested my temple gently against her forehead, pleased to feel she was indeed cooler than she’d been before the doctor had called.
“If you can hear me, hear this.I don’t ever want to miss the thrill of being with you.If anything happens to you, then there’s nothing left worth fighting for.Let Ian have me, let him have his fucking victory.I’ll go back over there and take whatever’s coming to me.”Fighting back my emotions, I willed the outcome away.“Nothing meansanythingwithout you at my side.”
For the longest time, there was no response, no sound at all, save for her regular breaths and my own tangled, throaty gasps.In those debilitating seconds, the weight of a hundred eventualities rained down over me, taunting me with their agonizing inevitability.
Caroline wasn’t going to make it.She’d been too good to be true.What we had was too good to last.I’d known that right from the start, hadn’t I?I hadn’t seriously believed that we could be together...
Why hadn’t I realized we could never have a future?
Why hadn’t I accepted that I didn’t warrant such happiness?
This is my punishment.The reality of that smashed me in the face like freezing water.Losing her is the price I have to pay for everything I’ve done.
It was then, in that dark pit of panic, that the first signs of hope met my ears.Tiny murmurs, no more than gasped mewls, morphed into a barely distinguishable whimper.
“Mmmm.”
