Unhinge - Calia Read Page 0,12

grows larger, slowly surrounding me. Dr. Calloway’s office fades. She’s still talking but her words are impossible to make out.

My ears start to ring and a bright, searing light surrounds the edge of my vision before it’s all I can see. I feel myself detaching from the present and merging into the past. My clothes dissolve and are replaced by a cotton summer dress. My hair shines and my skin begins to glow. A breeze brushes against my skin. And in front of my very eyes, Evelyn starts to disappear. I cry out for her but it’s too late….I’m already gone.

May 2012

I had no idea how my life would unfold the day I met Wesley Donovan.

I met him a year ago. We ran into each other on the street. Literally. I was in a rush, carrying a bouquet of flowers I had picked up from the florist. I hurried to my car and glanced down at my watch. I wanted to get back to my apartment and clean up some more before I had dinner with my mother. I wanted to put the flowers in a vase and display them on the table. It would be one less thing that my mother would tut about. I should’ve done this earlier. I know that. Five o’clock is the worst time to try to get things done, but I had a late shift at the hospital and got home around six this morning. I told myself I was going to get a few hours of sleep and ended up sleeping until three in the afternoon.

Cars waited in traffic. Horns honked. Radios were blasted so loud the ground seemed to shake beneath me. It was all annoying me, distracting me.

And then I walked straight into him. He was in a rush, talking on his cellphone. His BlackBerry fell out of his hand and onto the ground, skidding across the concrete before it stopped next to the storm drain. The flowers scattered everywhere.

“I’m sorry,” he lamented and kneeled down to help me pick up all twenty of the long-stemmed roses.

One by one they were placed back inside the kraft paper. Here was this gorgeous man gently handling flowers. It left me in a daze. I watched him carefully. His blond hair was cut short on the sides and longer on the top. Not a single strand of hair was out of place. Light brown lashes touched his cheeks, concealing his hazel eyes. He was freshly shaved, making his cheekbones stand out. He glanced at me from beneath his lashes and my world shifted.

Just like that.

The look in his eyes showed me he wanted to own every single part of me. The crazy part was that I would let him.

Flustered, I grabbed his phone and handed it over to him the same time he gave me back the flowers.

“Is your phone broken?”

He slid it back into his pocket and shrugged and gave me a lazy smile. “Doesn’t matter. I can replace it.”

My voice was shaky as I said thank you and when I started to walk away he gently grabbed my hand. It looked so small and delicate in his grasp. “I’m Wes Donovan,” he said.

“Victoria Aldridge.”

His hand drifted away from my wrist, fingers lingering on my skin, and shook my hand. My heart was in overdrive from one simple handshake. I knew then that I had to see Wes again.

Then he said to me, “You’re bleeding.”

I blinked away the fog that Wes had placed around me. “Huh?”

He extended my pointer finger and I saw bright red blood slowly traveling down its edge. “Must have been pricked by a thorn,” he said.

“I guess so,” I replied, my voice slightly breathless.

Without asking, he gently grasped my hand and wrapped it in a monogrammed handkerchief. He carried my flowers for me and walked me to my car. And when I was ready to get into the car he rested his shoulder against the side of it and dipped his head close to me. He told me he wanted to see me again.

I said yes. Of course I said yes. I thought that any woman who would say no to a man like Wes Donovan was a fool.

That was the prologue to our relationship.

Wes was ten years older than my twenty-three. At the time, the age difference didn’t bother me. If anything, it was one more point in Wes’s favor. Very quickly, I was pulled in by his unshakable self-assurance. I thought he was mature. Wise. He knew