Fight From The Heart (Heart Collection #4) - L.B. Dunbar Page 0,16

be nurtured to blossom. The doctor should have compassion, but he doesn’t. The creature shouldn’t love, but he does, and that desire for love consumes him to the point of hate.”

Alright, now I do need another drink. I reach for the scotch and pour. I don’t need a psychological investigation into a story so similar to my own. I want to rip apart Kenneth Branagh’s warped depiction and laugh at it.

See, a monster myself.

I sense Pam’s eyes on me as I down the second glass, but I ignore those knowing eyes. She sees what I’m doing—drowning myself.

“I never asked you about your trip,” she interjects next, changing the subject to one that upsets me even more than our previous topic. I’ll need this entire bottle to hold a conversation about my suddenly ended love life. The thought gives me pause. But was it actually love? The seductive attempts by Mandi. The whines, pleas, and begging for more. The coldhearted stance I had to take with her. The fact my dick couldn’t rise for her anymore, and my heart finally said enough.

“It was . . .” I can’t lie. “Not great.”

Pam’s head spins in my direction. “Really? I thought it was a vacation.” She knows about Mandi on a surface level, meaning she knows I’ve had someone in my life. Mandi is the one who met me in various places around the States. Mandi is the one I’d argue with on the phone, and Mandi is the one I asked Pam to send flowers to once.

I’m such an ass.

“It wasn’t. Vacations are supposed to be restful, and this one wasn’t.” I sigh and glance up at the movie. It’s the scene where the creature’s lover is killed. All he wants is to be loved, Pam said. Spot-on assessment.

“Let’s just watch the movie,” I snap, harshly. Pam’s gaze presses into the side of my head, but I don’t turn back to her. I’m not comfortable with how well I think she sees me at this moment.

“Are you okay?” she asks. I don’t want to discuss myself any more than I want to talk about Mandi.

“I’m always fine,” I tell her, reminding myself. I can get through anything with a drink.

By the time the movie ends, Pam has snuggled lower in the blankets, and I want to bury myself in a hole for barking at her.

“Mandi and I aren’t together anymore,” I finally tell her, feeling as if the confession will make up for turning our evening sour. “The trip was a time to discuss our feelings,” I mock, “which included how I don’t have any, and she has all the feels for love and marriage.”

“You don’t want to marry her, or you’re just against marriage in general?” Pam asks, turning her head to look up at me.

“Both,” I immediately answer. Pam’s eyes widen at the admission. I don’t even have to ask to know she’s a woman who wants marriage someday. A husband. A home. A family. Those are things I could never offer a woman, and especially not a woman so good like her.

She still looking at me when she adds, “I don’t think you’re without feelings, Jacob. Look at how you are with your sister.”

I huff as it hardly compares to relationship statuses with women as a whole. I don’t do relationships, at least not well—case in point being Mandi.

“Want to watch something else?” I ask, hoping to drop the subject.

“You can,” she offers, fighting a yawn. “I’ll probably fall asleep during it.”

“I can go downstairs,” I suggest, although I don’t really want to leave the room.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says, her voice softening.

“You’re saying I can sleep with you again?” I tease in hopes to break the tension between us.

“It’s your house, right? Your rules,” she says with a bitter tone so unlike her. I especially do not like how it’s directed at me.

“Good night, Lilac,” I whisper, wondering what it would be like to say it to her every night.

“Good night.” She rolls to her side, placing her back to me, and I hate myself even more for ruining this night. Then again, that’s what a monster does. He ruins things. He destroys them.

I reach for the bottle of scotch, but something stops my hand. My fingers shake and blur as I pause just before touching the glass container. I turn back to Pam’s form in my bed. I have something good right next to me, and I’m an ass for ignoring the pull I