two worlds, I only wanted to be a savage girl. One who was held in the arms of her mountain man day in and day out. The girl he loved...
My stomach clenched. As much as I didn't want to be the girl in those photographs, I knew I couldn't deny that part of me forever.
"See, I know you'll come back to me, darling." Ramon’s eyes glowed with hope and he rose to his feet with a sigh of relief. "You'll remember it all soon."
He turned, walking to the door. "Get some rest," he said as he paused. "A doctor will be here to see you in the morning."
I opened my mouth to say I'd already been checked over by a doctor, but by the time I got the words to my lips, he was gone.
I lay down on the floor again, my back to the iPad as I resisted looking through more of my past. I ached for Nicoli. And nothing I ever was before I'd met him would sate that need.
***
In the morning, I finally took off my dress, my limbs aching from my night on the floor and I realised how much I missed sleeping in a bed. But without my mountain man, I didn't want it. I fell back on my coping mechanisms instinctively, but I was trying hard not to disappear. I needed to hold onto my voice so I could stand up for myself. I needed to ask for what I wanted. Demand it. And I wasn't going to take no for an answer today.
I headed into the en-suite and showered before returning to the bedroom and dressing in the sweatpants and shirt that had been left for me. Then I moved to the door, turning the handle and cursing as colourfully as Nicoli often did when I found it locked. That bastard.
I started hammering my fist on the wood and it wasn't long before footsteps hurried my way and the door opened. Ramon stood there in a pair of cream chinos and a white dress shirt which hugged his muscular physique.
Speak, I told myself, my tongue wrapping around the words I needed to say, but not releasing them.
"Are you alright, my darling?" Ramon reached out as if to touch me and I jerked backwards, baring my teeth. "Forgive me." He dropped his hand to his side, sadness in his eyes.
"You locked me in," I growled, finally getting the sentence out.
"Only to protect you," he said earnestly. "I won't do so again."
I pressed my lips together as he stepped back, opening an arm in an offering for me to come out.
"I want to see Nicoli," I told him, staring him dead in the eye.
"My love..."
"I want to see him. Now," I insisted, my heart jack-hammering in my chest.
"Am I not owed a little time with you first?" he all but begged and a weight of guilt pulled at my chest at his broken expression.
I chewed on my lip. "Why can't he come here? I'll look at the albums, I'll face my past, but I want him here while I do it."
"You're asking an awful lot of the man who once got down on one knee for you. Who offered you a life at his side. I did not expect another man to enter that arrangement when you agreed to be mine always and forever," he said, firm enough that I could tell he was hurting.
"I don't remember that agreement," I breathed, heat carving a line up the back of my neck. "I'm sorry if this is upsetting-"
"Upsetting?" he balked, his eyes flaring with emotion. "It breaks my fucking heart."
I swallowed thickly as I stepped out into the hall, my fingers curling up into my palms and my nails biting into the skin. "I don't want to hurt you-"
"You are hurting me, you're crushing me, Sasha."
"Winter," I corrected and his face screwed up.
"No," he growled. "You're my Sasha. After the months of suffering, thinking the worst, fearing you were dead and now...now I finally find you again and I see your body marred by all those scars and you won’t even let me hold you and it breaks me, darling, it breaks me."
"I..." I shook my head, my heart twisting at his words as I struggled for what to say.
"Please," he implored, reaching for my hand. He took it and I fought the urge to drag it out of his grip as he stared at me like the world began and ended with me. "Give me