Page 385

“I'm going to marry this man.”

My voice was shaky and my vision blurred.

His gaze was no longer the usual one.

“So stay away from him.”

Another shadow flitted across his face, this time darker. The sharp edges of his jaw pressed against his smooth skin, visibly working.

“And from me.”

The last words almost died in my throat.

A wave of all kinds of feelings crashed over my once calm ocean.

I rushed past Miles, getting faster and faster, leaving him standing there.

I would transform, again, without wanting to. The Senseque in me was the only one who could still bear this burden. For now.

And then I plunged into the cool winter night.

Chapters 50

Miles

Earn It (Fifty Shades of Grey)

From The “Fifty Shades of Grey” Soundtrack

The Weeknd

Every step she took brought me back to the past. The music had just started, and already she was pulling me across the room, that smile on her face that she always wore so proudly when she was on the dance floor. Here, Olivia was like a different person. She was at home.

The question was, was I too?

I followed her, just like back then, adapting my steps to hers, and it didn't take long before I felt the melody and rhythm awaken a part of me that I had thought was already dead.

The corners of her mouth turned up even further when I finally managed to take the lead.

With Emely, I hadn't even had to think about the past. It had been different. Completely different.

By now, the memory of the winter ball had become somewhat painful. I would never experience that moment again. The movie in my head was all that remained. A fragment of memory. Almost a surreal dream.

I never would have believed that I would dance with this girl even once, never assumed that I would ever move to music outside of a club again...

With her, it had felt different than with Olivia.

An involuntary smile stole across my lips, because there it was again, that slight tingling in my stomach. But it disappeared as quickly as it had come when Olivia smiled back.

I felt like a traitor.

Dancing was what had connected us since back then, and I was actually happy to be here with her. But it also reopened old scars that had grown so small and delicate that I had forgotten they existed, and their slight pulling pain took me by surprise.

I was an idiot. Of course I knew the places where Olivia McConnell had left her scars on me. Scars she didn't even know about.

“Very good!” exclaimed the bony woman with short white hair who was sipping her coffee.

Olivia's smile grew even wider, and I spun her around for the first time in years.