Chapter 38 BETH #2
“I know he has been telling you things.” His fingers brushed over my lips, sending a shiver skirting up my spine.
“Trying to convince you to walk away from this beautiful thing between us.” He exhaled sharply, his face lowering, the tip of his nose brushing against my jaw.
“Who knows what I’ll do if he tries to take you away from me because I’m not good enough for you? God, I’ll not hesitate to–”
“–No!” I snapped, shaking my head so sharply that it slammed into the headrest when the car lurched over a slight bump. “He won’t do anything.”
He studied me, lips curved in a sinister grin, his gaze brimming with something promising and dangerous, then he shrugged. “Okay. I believe you. No need to be dramatic.”
His shadow disappeared as he leaned back into his chair, head thrown against the leather, his eyes snapping shut.
I sat there quietly, too scared to even move and risk making a sound that would remind him that I was beside him. And I didn’t question it when, instead of driving toward the guesthouse since he said we were spending the day together, the driver took the road that led to my house.
“I need to attend something outside of town,” he answered as if reading the unspoken question on my lips. “I’ll be back.”
Relief washed over me. A reprieve, a brief moment without him breathing down my neck, manipulating my thoughts, twisting my world into something unrecognizable.
It was hard to remember that there used to be a man who looked exactly like him that I adored. And then there was a monster who lived inside him. But it had been so long since I saw the other version that his memories had nearly faded away. And all I was left with was the monster.
Perhaps all of that then was just an illusion. Maybe Zaghan, Callan whichever was which was just a trick of the light. Maybe there had been just a predator spinning a web, feigning tenderness until I was too entangled to escape.
Maybe there was really no such thing as Zaghan and Callan.
Just a predator.
The car pulled into my driveway after a long quiet ride.
As I went to open the door, Zaghan’s hand covered mine, his warmth seeping into my skin.
My heart skittered as he leaned in, lips brushing against mine with a gentleness that felt like a contradiction.
“I’ll be back in…three hours, hmm?” He left feather light kisses on my jaw, face burrowing into the crook of my neck, breathing me in as if he couldn’t get enough, like he needed to fill his lungs with oxygen enough to last him until he returned from this unknown quest. “You’ll be here when I get back, won’t you? ”
“I will.” I nodded, my body betraying me with a shiver when his lips returned to my trembling ones, capturing them in a short but heated kiss that was both demanding and possessive, sending electric jolts to the tip of my toes.
“Go,” he ordered, voice husky, layered with yearning as if restraining himself from taking more.
He opened the door, pushing it wide enough for me to slip through. I stepped out, my body weightless, lips tingling as the memories of his hot ones lingered.
The car didn’t move, not when I reached the doorstep, pushed open the door, and disappeared inside the quiet and empty house.
I leaned against the door, eyes closed. Then a few seconds later, the roar of the engine ripped through the quiet street, the tyres screeching as they reversed out of my driveway.
Subconsciously, my hand lifted to touch my lips, to caress them and nurse the burn from his touch. A soft gasp that could easily go unnoticed echoed from my parted lips when my hand brushed my erect nipple.
All he did was kiss me. And I was already a mess, burning from just a mere touch.
A sudden vibration from my rucksack distracted me from my thoughts. Unhitching it from my shoulder, I zipped open the back pocket and pulled out the phone.
The name on the screen had me pausing.
Rowan?
???
I didn’t have to pick Rowan McRae’s call.
I had no obligation to even if things were left on a cliffhanger the last time we met.
He had called me many times after that day.
But I was always not in the right frame of mind to answer it.
I should have ignored today’s own, too. I should have pretended like I didn’t see it.
But I didn’t. Couldn’t. Because it was Rowan McRae. And he didn’t deserve my constant dismissal.
When I eventually picked the call and he asked us to meet briefly, I should have said no. I had the right to reject a meeting if it wasn’t favourable to me. But again, it was Rowan McRae, a man I once adored. And he said he was leaving town for good…forever.
Maybe I should have chosen to say my goodbye over the phone. Maybe I should have remembered things could go really awry all of a sudden if I stepped out of the house.
But I didn’t. Because it was Rowan McRae. And for some reason, I still felt like I had an unpaid debt. Because this thing called guilt had a way of dressing itself as an obligation.
It was just a harmless goodbye. After all I had done—ruined his life without batting an eye that day, I owed him this much. A few minutes. A simple hug. Something small enough to balance the scale.
But when a simple goodbye came with a kiss, I was in full control and had the right to say no. I knew it then. But right felt theoretical when you had already forfeited them.
With Rowan McRae, I wasn’t just a girl anymore. I was a debtor.
And when goodbye kisses turned into something more, it wasn’t desire that kept me there. Rowan McRae might still hold the title of the most handsome teacher Lochborne Academy of Arts had ever had, but the attraction and the fire wasn’t there anymore. So, was the hesitation.
When he touched me like he memorised my every curve and dents, there was only resignation, the quiet understanding that this was what paying back felt like.
I didn’t stop him. I didn’t stop myself. I watched it happen from somewhere distant, counting the cracks in the ceiling, noting the wallpapers that were peeling off, while Zaghan’s shadow pressed into the edges of my thoughts. And I could swear I saw blood coating his fingers. I smelt iron.
They said fear would make you run. It was ironic, because sometimes, fear did quite the opposite. Sometimes it was a fuel to self-destruction, convincing you that you were already ruined, so you might as well just finish the job.
I was afraid when I stepped out of the house.
Afraid while Rowan touched me. Afraid when it was over.
But nothing could have compared to the fear of arriving home barely an hour later and meeting Zaghan who wasn’t supposed to be back until the next two hours, sprawled on my bed, flipping through my diary.
The book that held my thoughts, my poetry, my secrets.
That was when I was reminded what fear really was. And I thought maybe, just maybe, I should have allowed the fear to stop me then.
My pulse thundered as I shut the door gently behind me, my fingers clenching tightly around the strap of my tote bag, limbs trembling.
“You shouldn’t be reading that,” I said, trying to sound firm, to not show guilt. “That’s invasion of privacy.”
“You write a lot,” he said mildly, ignoring my comment as his gaze remained fix on the opened page. “You don’t filter anything. That can be quite risky, you know?”
My heartbeat thundered in my ears. “Give it back.”
He glanced up, eyes sharp, not angry, but interested, which was even worse. “You think a lot about people,” he noted. “I noticed how names come up often. Names of other men.” His eyes returned to the page briefly. “Some come up a lot.”
My throat tightened. “Stop.”
“Your thoughts about them are…interesting.”
The words lingered between us for a moment, heavy and undefined as he stared at the book, his jaw flexing gently.
Then he snapped the pages shut, keeping it aside, his dark gaze returning to me.
“I noticed something, though,” he said, tone casual. “My name. I didn’t see my name there, Elizabeth.”
“You weren’t supposed to go through someone else’s diary.” I took a step closer, my skin buzzing, heart racing against time.
He tilted his head, as if considering that.
“I found his name,” he commented, his eyes darkening, and my pulse skittered.
“Callan. I saw his name plenty times.” His hand went to the diary set beside him, fingers tapping on the back mindlessly.
“I read about him. He exists in your inner world. Why not me too, Elizabeth? Why do I not exist in your diary?”
My chest tightened at the cold crack in his voice, the way the sharp edges sliced my skin and stilled my breath.
“I have claimed you in every way that leaves a mark,” he said, voice low and precise.
“I live in your body, in the way you fucking unravel. I haunt your every breath, and yet.” He paused, offering a smile, a slow, jagged thing that wasn’t quite human.
“You erased me from your inner world, denied me space in the place I wanted to be the most…your mind.”
His name wasn’t in my diary not because he was small, insignificant or irrelevant.
No. On the contrary, Zaghan was a man whose presence pressed into the skin, wrapped around your ribs, and refused to let go.
He was someone who passed through a room and left his scent behind, lingering for hours like a bruise you couldn’t stop touching.
I didn’t write him because he was my secret.
Diary was meant for privacy, yes. But sometimes, there were just some truths whose weight the diary couldn’t bear to hold. Things that would rot the page the moment ink touched the paper.
With Zaghan, I realised I became something else. Something bent, wrong. Not a version of myself I could justify. Not a girl I could explain away with careful sentences and softened edges.
Every moment his hand had touched me, he’d dragged something out of me that felt feral, twisted, and unholy.
Once that thing was named, it would become real.
And if it was real, it meant I had wanted it.
But I couldn’t let the world know that part of me existed.
I couldn’t even let myself see it written down.
“It’s not that–”
“–We’ll talk about that later.” He swung his legs off the bed, rising to his full height. “Here’s the real question I wanted to ask.”
His steps were slow as he began to cross the room to me, his presence clouding my mind and suffocating me. “Where have you been? Why did you go? What did you do?”
He stood before me now, looming, gaze sharp enough to slice through my flesh, while my body pressed against the door, willing it to swallow me. “Who was he, Elizabeth?”
“It was no one.” I shook my head.
His lips curved into a smirk, then he leaned in, inhaling the scent clinging to my skin. “Don’t lie, little witch. It’ll only make it worse.”
Then he leaned back, jaw clenched so tight, I feared his teeth might snap. “Who is he?”
“R-Rowan.”
“The teacher?” he sneered, eyes hardening.
“Zaghan, I’m so–”
“You were with another man, Elizabeth,” he stated, a poisonous edge to his voice. “And you don’t just smell like him, you fucking reek of sex.”
My body trembled. I was going to say nothing happened. That we just hugged…for a second.
“You had only one job.” His words sliced like a blade, the intensity of his suppressed rage sending a shiver down my spine.
“Don’t fucking let another man touch you.
It was so fucking simple, Elizabeth. So…
simple.” He dragged in a sharp breath, his muscles taut as he slipped his hands into his pockets, a vein sprain across his jaw.
“Another man fucked you, Fraser.” There was a gentle quiver in his voice, not of vulnerability, but of lethality.
“I’m not very pleased about that. And do you know what happens when something doesn’t please me?
” There was a flash of something dark and deadly across those fire eyes. “I do bad, really, really bad things.”
Then he raised his hands, and my heart leaped. I expected the weight of fingers wrapping around my throat, crushing the pulse feathering beneath my skin. But I got just a gentle shove until I was away from the door.
Without turning, he walked out, his steps heavy and controlled as he slipped out of the house, leaving behind the fear he so carefully wrapped me in.
Fuck.
I’m dead.