Chapter 42 Like a Noose
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Like a Noose
IRINA
Why did I have to walk away from him right as the storm hit?
I curled myself into a ball, hugging my blanket tighter as the yacht swayed, and the rain beat a drumming rhythm on the windows, and the memories beat a rhythm on the inside of my skull.
I didn’t even have the comfort of Abernathy to help me get through what was going to be an absolute shit of a night. Henry had given them a pill each to help them relax, and they were safely locked away in their cat crates.
Where was my special pill to help me relax? I conveniently ignored the fact that I never took so much as paracetamol unless I was on the verge of dying. These were extenuating circumstances.
Storms made me think of Andrei, and those thoughts were like a noose tightening around my neck.
I forced those thoughts from my head. I had to get through this night without letting the memories take over.
I turned my thoughts to Henry. Was he trying to make it impossible for me to survive until our two-year expiry date?
Why did he have to say things that made these feelings in me swell, and blossom, and … hope?
And why did I wish that when I’d confronted him about it, he’d leaned in and kissed me instead of apologising? I groaned into the blanket. Kissing—and all the other things I’d like to be doing with him—would be the definition of stupid, since neither of us wanted to be honest about what it meant.
It had begun to mean something important to me, but there was no way I was putting that out there.
Not when he was trying so hard to do the right thing, to stick to the plan, to work towards the end game.
But what if the right thing had changed in the course of us getting to know one another over the last couple of months?
The boat lurched, and my breath caught in my throat. It was followed by a flash of lightning that illuminated the room and a boom of thunder seconds later, close enough that I felt the vibrations of it in my bones.
My chest constricted, my limbs locked with terror. And the memory surged …