Chapter 16 Come to Me #2
“If you tell anyone, I swear to God, Emery—”
I end the call and drag myself into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and rinse my mouth.
My skin is blotchy, my eyes bloodshot, and my nose red.
My family is a mess because of me. I don’t belong.
I never did. No wonder they all despise me.
I ruined them. Mom had to live with me and pretend I was hers when I belonged to a woman she despised.
That’s why she said he loved her, and she gave him what she couldn’t.
Another sob rips from me and my throat closes up like there’s not enough oxygen in the room.
I glance at the ocean and rough waves desperate to be out there.
My feet move, shuffling me from the room, as if they have a mind of their own.
I enter Lachlan’s bedroom. He’s not here.
My hand grips the knob, then I’m in the hallway, my brain in a fog as my legs keep carrying me forward.
Mindlessly, I take the stairs down and down and down as if I’m floating.
On the ground floor, a housekeeper spots me and gasps. Concern fills her eyes.
“Outside,” I say through my tight throat, my hand rubbing my neck frantically. “Outside. Please.”
She glances around in search of someone else to help or to give her orders.
I turn right and follow the hallway in search of an exit myself, struggling for the oxygen I can’t seem to get.
She passes me and waves for me to follow. “Down here.”
She turns left and opens a door that leads to an orangery with a glass roof. Plants and flowers are everywhere, and the scent of orange fills my nose. It reminds me of home. A bigger sob wrenches from me, and I almost buckle over.
“Ms? Ms?” The woman holds a door open on the left.
A salty breeze sweeps through the orangery.
I rush toward her and burst onto a stone patio lined with a low wall.
Wind whips at my hair and skin. I draw in a breath and fill my lungs with ocean air.
It’s not enough. My heart feels like cracked stone.
Tears streak my cheeks as I race toward the narrow peninsula at the edge of the cliffs. The one I saw from my bedroom.
Chilly wind pushes against me as if trying to slow my steps.
My hair twists in my face. I fight to secure the strands behind my ears and have to hold one side flat to my head so I can see where I’m going.
Waves slam into the rocks below with colossal force.
I could probably balance on my toes at the edge and the wind alone would keep me from toppling over.
The fierceness of it feels good, the beating deserved. I didn’t ask to be born from another woman or born at all. I don’t want to be the bastard child that tore my family apart and sent my depressed mom to the bottle for numbness. Why couldn’t I have just been hers?
A gust teeters me backwards onto my heels.
The wind shifts and my hair blasts away from my face.
I spread my arms wide and stare out over the blue horizon.
My eyes burn from the salty air, sharp wind, and my tears.
If I stand like this long enough, maybe I’ll go numb inside and out. Maybe then I can breathe.
“Emery!” Lachlan’s voice rises over the sound of crashing waves and the blasting wind. “Emery,” he shouts louder, his tone sharp. “Come to me.” His English accent is thick.
I glance over my shoulder as my satin dress billows behind me, ghostlike. I must look haunting—that's why fear flickers in his eyes.
“Come to me.” He holds out his hand and slowly walks toward me.
My long strands whip across my face. I turn away from him, letting the wind sweep them back.
“Emery!” he barks with a panic that must only be in my head. Either that or he’s mad. Nothing new there.
“Emery, goddammit, come to me right now! Come to me! Come to me, my golden princess. Come to me.” It sounds like a chant, a desperate plea that has me looking back at him again.
He’s closer, almost to me, and with so much horror on his face.
A gust hits me from the right, shoving me sideways. I lose my balance and teeter forward—too far, too far. I’m falling. Terror seizes me. I start to scream, but strong arms seize my waist from behind and yank me backward. We crash to the ground, his body breaking my fall.
My breathing blows fast and shallow, my lips growing numb. I almost fell. I could have died. I would have died.
Maybe I should have.
The thought jolts me to awareness. Never in my life have I contemplated that. Never.
I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to hurt. Lachlan sits up and scoots backward away from the ledge, dragging me with him by the waist. Once we’re several feet away, he turns me and brushes my hair from my face until our eyes connect. His other arm is tight on my waist, securing me to him.
“Are you all right?” Fear rings in his thicker accented voice.
I nod and wipe my eyes, unsure of exactly how that happened. I wasn’t that close to the ledge. I didn’t think I was.
He presses his forehead to mine, his hand at the back of my neck. “Don’t ever, ever, do that again.”
This is the most emotion I’ve seen from him. If I weren’t witnessing it, I wouldn’t believe he was capable of such a strong reaction.
“I didn’t want to fall.”
He pulls back to look at me. “Why were you there then?” Anger seeps into his voice and eyes.
“I couldn’t breathe.” Explaining more than that would be too much. He wouldn’t understand or be interested anyway.
He holds my gaze, searching it for something, his breathing ragged. Then he’s kissing me as fiercely as the waves crash into the rocks below. His tongue is hot, his breath racing. He holds the back of my head, commanding I stay where I am and take what he’s giving me.
And I take it.
I open wider for him and grab at his suit jacket, giving into the urge to submit and let this confounding man control me.
I drink in his scotch taste as the roughness of his scruff brushes my skin.
I lose myself in the sensations building in me, wanting them to erase the pain bleeding from my heart.
He can make me forget it all. He can send me to heaven where all I’ll feel is ecstasy.
I’ll do whatever he wants.
He stops kissing me. “What did you say?”
Oh. I must have spoken my thoughts aloud. “I’ll do whatever you want,” I confess. “I know you can do it.”
“Do what?” He wipes moisture from my cheek and grazes my bottom lip with his thumb.
“Take the pain away.” At the mere word, my heart crumbles, and new tears form.
Desire withers from his eyes, replaced with concern. “What happened?”
I shake my head and press my lips to his. He kisses me but not with the same intensity as before.
“Please, Lachlan.” I grip his jacket tighter. “Make it go away.”
He pulls back. “Not until you tell me what happened. Did you talk to someone?” The muscle under his eye twitches. “Did someone hurt you?”
I cry again, triggered so easily—more than I’ve been in my life. “It’s nothing you would care about.” I lower my chin.
He stands, taking me with him, and scoops me into his arms, carrying me like a lover would. “Let’s get you cleaned up, then we’ll talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
He walks toward the castle, as sturdy as a horse, the wind not shifting him in the slightest. “If you want me to fuck you and take away your pain, we’ll talk.”
I glare. The nerve of him to say that when I’m vulnerable. “Fine. Sex is off the table.”
“It was never going to be on the table. Not for your first time. The second time… any place is fair game.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I snap, ignoring the spark of heat his words stir in my lower belly. He’s trying to distract me, and it’s working. It’s so easy for him to get me riled up and turned on. Both are better than heartache.
“I know what you meant.” His mouth hints at a smirk.