Chapter 25
Watching Bella dine with this bloke was eating me alive.
From the way she giggled at his stupid jokes to how he kept finding ways to put his greasy fucking hands on her.
Cracking my neck I ordered another coffee from the woman who kept coming over to my table.
I was facing the bar but had an excellent view of Isabella and blondie in the mirror next to the bathrooms. I tried to give her privacy while convincing myself this was for the best.
“Tell me not to go and I won’t…”
I hissed in a breath and forced myself not to relive that moment in the car over and over again.
I had wanted to slam on the brakes the second she asked me if I wanted her to go on the date.
What kind of question was that? Of course I didn’t want her to go on a date with that prick, or any other fucker for that matter!
But perhaps I had played my part too well and she really believed it had been nothing but a game of chase.
A laugh from her table made anger blaze through my gut.
The truth was Isabella had awoken parts of me I had thought long dead, forcing me to yet again switch my emotions off like I had over a decade ago.
Just as I began to feel numb, she would go, no, shove her way through the ice walls I had built around my heart leaving me shattered and torn.
It was getting harder and harder to resist.
She’d been right at the ball. What right did I have to demand she not see other people, when my heart was clearly off the table?
Because she was mine. That was why.
And yet I couldn’t have her. I was a dangerous person with an endless list of ruthless enemies. Any one of them could be the tosser sending me threatening messages. I swallowed the pain down like a bitter pill. Should anything happen to her it would be my fault, and for once I actually gave a fuck.
Fact was I knew I’d rather die than let any harm come to her.
Fuckin’ hell!
I cocked my head and looked back into the mirror.
I could tell Isabella was uncomfortable but she was doing a great job of hiding it.
But judging by the way he had been drooling all over her since the second they’d sat down, I’d say he’d never taken a girl out once in his fucking life.
The tosser looked as though he’d come in his pants the second she looked at him in a certain way.
Just then, he curled a hair behind her ear and stroked her jaw with his thumb. I had to grip the underside of the table just to stop myself from marching over there and launching the dude through the damn window.
I was at war with myself and if I didn’t pull my head out my arse soon, I was likely to do something I’d regret.
I gripped the tablecloth as visions started sprouting in my mind like evil weeds, filling my gut with doubt.
Bella on her wedding day. Laughing as she jumped into blondie’s arms with a swollen belly.
Her surrounded by children that weren’t mine.
I gritted my teeth as each vision burned worse than the first. That woman currently sitting on a date with another man was becoming the centre of my universe, and what was worse was… I had made her think she wasn’t.
What a fucking wanker I was.
I shoved my fingers into my hair and pulled.
My mind was full of her smile and laugh.
How it felt when she challenged me. The way she looked at me as though I was hers.
A line from a Thomas Hardy novel I had read in school swirled round and round in my thoughts: “The irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find sweet pleasure somewhere, which pervades all life…”
That was Isabella. She felt like my fuckin’ lifeline.
After my parents had died I’d shut down and blocked people out. And for over a decade I’d been satisfied with that, moving aimlessly from one kill to the next to survive.
Until her.
The realisation struck me like a kick to the head.
What if I’d gotten this all wrong? I was allowing some fucker out there stopping me from being with the woman I wanted.
But who better to protect her than me? I could protect her and be the man she looked to with adoration and devotion.
I’d worship every inch of the ground she walked on.
I had to tell her. If I didn’t, I was going to lose her.
If I hadn’t already.
Shifting in my seat, I wracked my brain with what to do. If she couldn’t accept or understand the reason why I had pushed her away and forgive me, could I let her go? Could I let her be with some other guy?
No.
She was mine.
I had to make her understand.
While I slowly went mad, that arsehole decided to put his hand on her bare thigh and slid it upward.
I didn’t fuckin’ think so.
I pulled out my phone and messaged her. Her reply impressed and infuriated me.
Not this time, princess.
I was up and out of my seat before you could say she was mine.