Three, almost four, months with him, and that was the most progress I'd made.
Pushing my limits was something I used to do all the time. I was risky, fun, somewhat dangerous. I was a woman who took charge and face things head on. I used to not let things bother me. I would stay busy, distracting myself from the pain of my past. Then he walked into my restaurant, and he changed everything.
Suddenly, I wanted to be the fun risky girl I was pretending to be. I wanted to be all those things for him.
Then Collin, the man I am running after, stabbed my brother at the Gala five years ago.
Everything changed then. I wasn’t the fun, brave woman I pretended to be in front of everyone. I found a comfortable routine and stuck to it, because I feared that if I broke it, someone else I loved would get hurt.
Then I saw the man of my dreams, the man who betrayed us and tried to kill my brother, walk by the coffee shop window with a cigarette hanging from his lips…and I didn’t want to be the timid woman anymore.
I yanked the bedroom door open and flung myself into the hallway.
“Why won’t you just talk to me?” I yelled at his back. He whirled, spinning on his heels, his eyes slightly wider than normal.
“Go. To. Bed.” He began walking back to me.
“Come with me,” I challenged, and his steps faltered. Normally, when a woman told a man to come to bed with her, that man would take a moment to appreciate the woman and her offer. He would trail his eyes down her body slowly and smile. The light-yellow silk pajama short set I was wearing would've helped with that.
Newsflash: that shit didn’t happen with Collin Stevens. Instead of holding my eyes like he wouldnormallydo, he looked away, disgusted.
My heart flinched at the rejection as I shook my head.
“I will not tell you again, Angel. Go to sleep,” he growled.
“Make me.”
He put his hands in his pockets and looked to the floor. “Is that what you want?”
His voice was scary now, and a chill ran down my spine. This wasn’t my Collin standing in front of me. This was the man in the abandoned building. The man who choked me until I blacked out. The man who left me for dead for weeks.
“Collin,” I whimpered.
“Go. To. Bed!”he roared, taking a step towards me and I did.
I practically jogged back into the damn room and slammed the door shut behind me. I banged my head back against the wood as my legs slid out from underneath me, and I let out an unsteady breath. I stared up at the moon, wondering what my friends were doing tonight, wondering if they finally gave up on me, or if they would eventually come to my rescue.
What if I couldn’t change him? What if I couldn’t find him again? What if I fail and I never saw my family again?
I shook my head. “No, Kay. You can do this. You know there's good in him. It’s just buried a little deeper than you anticipated,” I whispered to myself.
He still had good in him.
He still had good in him.
He still had good in him.
His soul still had light.
Two and a half months ago
I came into his study, freshly showered after days of being locked in that massive bedroom with an IV in my hand.
I was dressed in cotton pajamas, the pants dragging the floor a little due to my weight loss.
Collin had the room stocked with clothes in my size, books I enjoyed reading, decorated to my liking. My eyes fell to the cast on my wrist that I would have to wear for at least two weeks full-time.
Would I still be here in two weeks?
