Page 8

“I thought we were going home?” The last word tastes sour on my tongue.

The towering building of Blackcastle church looms over us as we arrive. Cars are neatly parked in the churchyard, and a dim yellow glow peaks through the ajar church doors.

“I’m following my instructions.”

“So, you lied?”

Always lies.

“You wouldn’t want to miss a Sunday service, would you?”

I’d sell my soul to miss it.

I swallow past the dryness in my throat.

“If you don’t mind, Miss Clarence, I’m on a schedule.” The guard glares at me through the rearview mirror, and as much as I don’t want to go inside, I’ll be glad when he’s gone.

I step out into the biting October cold, and I barely get to close the door before the car roars away.

Quiet settles and a low hum of the choir escapes through the heavy doors, accompanied by the low whistle of the wind. The only thing those habits were good for were keeping my skin from being exposed to the cold.

I’m glued to the spot as I gaze at the sprawling building. One I once looked at with rose-tinted glasses, but I know now that wasn’t reality. There’s also a hollow ache in my stomach as I catch a glimpse of the loggia at the side of the church.

“I missed you,” he confesses through kisses as his hand squeezes my waist.

“You only saw me last night,” I reply, biting his lower lip.

“That’s too long to be away from you.”

I'm about to come face to face with everything I left behind, people I left behind, when I walk through the doors of Blackcastle church.

Technically, I don’t have to go in. I could run now. There’s no one around to see me or chase me. Unless the guard is posted somewhere anticipating it… How much time would it buy me until someone noticed I still haven’t returned? Until my mother noticed? I would have thought she’d be waiting for me, had someone bring me in to make sure I returned. I supposed that guard should’ve done the job—

Something moves in my peripheral vision and I snap my attention to it. A plume of white smoke covers the face of someone leaning against the building. They’re tall with wide, broad shoulders, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket over a tight, black T-shirt that presses against defined abs. It’s the most normal I’ve seen someone dressed in five years, and not in a pressed shirt and slacks and long black dresses wherever you looked.

My heart slams to a halt in an instant when the smoke clears and the face I’ve been dreading seeing finally emerges.

It’s different, but the same. A cigarette hangs loosely between his fingers; black, silky hair drapes over his forehead with a middle parting, the sides cut shorter than the top of his hair. And his once bright, hazel eyes are fixed on me. Unreadable. Callous.

Kain Westbrook. The man I hate. The snake that bit me with his venom then left me to die.

There he is.

And that’s probably the person to make sure I definitely arrived at the church. Like their fucking minion.

He’s not the young-looking boy I remember. He looks more like a man. Muscles strain through the leather of his jacket as he brings the glowing cigarette up to his lips again.

Soreness spreads over my chest as we fix on each other. I attempt to make my feet move, but they won’t. I’m paralyzed. My body flutters with familiar feelings, but they don’t have the same effect they used to have. No. All I can feel is the boiling of my blood and the tremble of my hands as I look at him.

Rage.

He did this. He made sure Mother sent me away to be miserable for five years. To have men look at me like an object of their pleasure. To act like I’m something to be owned by them. Knowing that whenever they left, they would get themselves off to the visuals of me doing everything to appease them. Of having a cane come down on my ass and not being able to sit for hours on end. Learning how to be the perfect wife, mother, and toy to be used and discarded whenever they please. And they loved it. Relished in it. And Kain would be one of those men.

I unclench my fists, fingernail marks etched into my skin, and take a deep breath.

You did not spend years of your life building yourself back up to let yourself be knocked down with a single look.

I won’t allow my gnawing, dormant feelings to claw their way through. They’ll simply be a hindrance and I refuse to choke on them. They weren’t real.