He heard her cat start purring.
He cuddled.
Creed opened his eyes.
It took some time but the cat quit purring so he could hear Sylvie’s breaths come deep.
He shifted out of bed and moved to her dresser. Carefully, he opened the drawer where he found it while he was doing his search a month before.
He dug back behind her tees and his fingers hit it.
He pulled it out, moved to the window and stood in it, letting the moonlight light the wooden box as he flipped it open.
His put his finger in, flicking through the chains there.
Eleven necklaces. Eleven peridot pendants.
He flipped the box shut and his eyes went to the bed.
Her cat’s head was up and Creed knew she was looking at him.
Sylvie kept his necklaces. She cared.
She kept them.
She cared.
He f**ked her twice that night, made her come four times. She was there but she was not. He could be anybody.
But if she kept those f**king necklaces, somewhere in her, she cared.
He put the box back, grabbed his shit and left the room. He dumped it on the floor in her wreck of a guest bedroom, climbed into the double there and settled on his back.
He shoved one hand between his head and the pillow. He lifted the other one and traced the scar on his cheek then through his hair, his fingers pressing deep, feeling the ridge along the skin under his hair, over his skull until it stopped.
The memory played in his head like it did thousands of times before, his voice coming back, pained, weak.
Promise me.
The bastard promised.
He’d lied.
Creed rolled to his side.
He didn’t cuddle Chelle. He gave her that until she fell asleep and then he set her away.
He’d f**ked her over, huge. He’d tried but a dead man felt nothing. Creed had nothing to give. He wanted to, she deserved it but it just wasn’t there.
He couldn’t sleep next to Sylvie, his Sylvie, and not hold her.
So he didn’t.
Chapter Eight
I’m Creed
A cold, dark autumn night in Kentucky, twenty-six years earlier, Creed is thirteen, Sylvie is eight…