Page 17 of It Destroys Me
Clouds of devotion moved across her eyes until they started to mist. She always looked at me like a dream come true, like sunshine in winter, an oasis in the desert. Even when we’d been across from each other at that god-awful dinner with Bolton, she’d still looked at me that way—and not him. No one had ever looked at me like that. Some women wanted to fuck my brains out. Some wanted to be my wife, though not for the man I was, but the life I could provide. And some wanted to have my children, just for the chance to have a son over six feet with unquestionable intelligence. But I’d never met a woman who wanted me for me, unconditionally, no strings attached.
She continued to look at me as she absorbed my confession. “I didn’t actually watch my mother die since she passed so quickly, but I watched my father die. Slowly fade away with every passing day, the despair flaying him alive like a flesh-eating bacteria. I didn’t watch him take his last breath, but I found his body. I know our circumstances aren’t the same, but I understand loss. I understand watching the person you love most slowly give in to an opponent they can’t even see. I know how it feels to…never want to feel again.”
People always said they understood, but no one I knew had lost their wife before they turned thirty. That was something I carried alone. But Astrid was the first person to seem to relate to it. Her life had been filled with the same profound loss. I was the last of my bloodline, and so was she.
“The feelings I have for you…they scare me. They scare me because I’m terrified to lose you when you aren’t even mine.” Her eyes were like paragraphs in a novel, leaping off the page with raw emotion. Her words were authentic, her feelings genuine. She didn’t play games like the others did. She was a shit poker player, but she still won the game. “Once I allowed myself to have you, I felt it. Felt something I’d never felt for anyone else. I should have just ended my marriage right then. It was dead anyway.” Her eyes flicked away as the anger momentarily flushed into her face. She possessed no sympathy or understanding. She used to make excuses for him, used to rationalize the betrayal, used to try to make sense of something that simply didn’t make sense, but those days were long over. “I wish I’d found those text messages in the beginning. I would have left him and come straight to your bed and never left.”
The circumstances would have changed, but our problems would have remained. I hadn’t been looking for a woman when she’d barreled into my life like a fucking freight train. I wasn’t just emotionally unavailable, but emotionally stunted. But Astrid…she made things come back to life that I wished would stay dead. “Our predicament would be the same. It doesn’t matter when you left him or why you left him. He was never going to let you go. Your house might not have been a pile of ash like it is now, but you’d still be here with me.”
“You make it sound like fate.”
I didn’t believe in fate. But I believed I’d been doomed the moment I’d pulled over on that rainy night. Our lives had been intertwined ever since. The cost of her safety was my brother’s remains. I hoped he would understand the decision. I hoped I would see him again and he would give me that same shit-eating grin.
She continued to watch me, her eyes warm but direct. “So, can we give this a real shot?”
The circumstances weren’t ideal, not when she already shared my home with me. It wasn’t a normal relationship, but it hadn’t been normal since the moment we’d met on the street. “Yes.” I was already stuck in a relationship the likes of which I desperately wanted to avoid. My attempts at sabotage and to flee hadn’t worked. Perhaps it was time to bury my past in Shayla’s grave and move forward with my life.
A gentle smile moved into her eyes, a sunset shining in her gaze.
“When I saw you in my bed, I remembered. Remembered all the shit I’ve tried so hard to forget. Our oasis turned into a hospital room with tubes and monitors. The flowers on her nightstand died along with her. They put her to sleep and drugged her with as many pain meds as her body could absorb. Then she took her last breath…the sun coming through the drawn curtains…and then she was gone.”
The smile faded away as Astrid’s eyes turned serious once more. She swallowed as she watched me, clearly looking for the right words to acknowledge what I confessed. But there was nothing that could be said.
“I knew her so briefly, I’m not sure if I really loved her. But it hurts like hell all the same.”
Her eyes dropped down to the floor. “I think it hurts because of the life you could have had if she hadn’t died. She could have been the love of your life. The mother of your children. The person you grew old with. But she left so soon that you’ll never know.” Her eyes lifted once again to look at me. “It’s a tragedy.”
It was hard to believe Shayla had been gone ten years when it felt like yesterday. When I visited her grave, the engraving in the stone had faded over time, and it was only after I’d asked the cemetery caretaker to sharpen it that I realized over a decade had already passed. My elbows moved to my knees, and I looked at my joined hands, staring at the hard knuckles and the pronounced tendons that connected them to the rest of my body. “It is.” I didn’t understand why someone like me was still alive when so many things should have killed me by now…and she died before she’d had a chance to live. My scars were covered with ink. Bullets had grazed me. Blades had stabbed me.
But cancer crept in the dark and got her.
Astrid’s eyes lifted to look at me, her empathy so sincere that I didn’t question it. She didn’t seem jealous that I’d given my heart to another woman ten years ago, just the way it didn’t bother me that she’d loved someone else before we met…that she’d still loved him even when we were together.
It was all in the past now.
I didn’t tell her about my meeting with Bolton last night. Didn’t want to worry her pretty little head over something she couldn’t control. Despite the final words she’d said to him, he was still obsessed with keeping her on a leash like a fucking dog. His pride was bruised like a dropped peach. He needed control, to manipulate her physically and emotionally to erase the strain on his ego. He could blame his desperation on love, but I knew what it really was.
“Are you hungry?”
My chin lifted to look at her head on.
“We can get something to eat, if you want.”
I focused on the way her beautiful hair framed her face, her bright eyes and full lips, a woman so beautiful she should be the subject of the paintings on her walls. Sexy women were a dime a dozen in a place like Florence, but a woman who was as beautiful on the inside didn’t happen often. “I’m always hungry, sweetheart.”
Chapter 4
Astrid
I waited for Theo to come home that night, but when one in the morning rolled around, I realized he might be gone all night. I knew I wasn’t alone in the house. His butler was here, and he had security on the grounds behind the large iron door that looked like it belonged to a castle. But no amount of security could make me feel safe the way Theo could.
Not that I really felt unsafe. I just missed him.
He’d just told me he would really try, so I didn’t want to be clingy right off the bat, but I was anxious and desperate. I’m sorry to bother you, but do you think you’ll be home tonight? I sent off the message then reread it as I cringed. The last thing I should do was smother him right now, but I missed him so much that I couldn’t help it.
His three dots popped up immediately. You never bother me.
I read those words again and again, feeling my heart become so full. He was busier than Bolton had ever been, but Theo never made me feel like an afterthought. He made me feel like his woman, like I had the right to access him whenever I felt like it—a luxury that no one else had.