The Vows We Break - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,49
me.
I see it’s two AM before she pulls open her messaging app.
She finds a conversation, then types.
Andrea: Diana, you awake?
For a few seconds, nothing happens, and I eagerly await a response.
It doesn’t come.
She huffs. “She lives in Madrid, so it’s not that much of a surprise. I just thought she’d be awake—”
“We can try again later,” I soothe, finding myself in the odd position of wanting to make sure her feelings aren’t hurt.
“Really?” She turns to look at me. “You mean that?”
“I do.”
Like my words are fate driven, her phone pings.
Diana: What’s wrong? You’re never awake this early.
My heartbeat soars at the words.
“You could never show the doctor this?”
“She lives weird hours. Whenever I tried, it wasn’t the right time. They didn’t care that she’s in a different time zone. They thought I was just feeding the delusion, trying to make them believe the lie.”
“What about your other friends?”
“It just never worked out. Bad luck, I suppose. When they came for an appointment with me, they’d be in work or school.” She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. So long as you believe me, that’s all that counts,” she tells me even as she sends a text back to Diana.
Andrea: It’s okay. I just wanted to prove you exist.
Diana: Lol. Put the fucking doctor on the phone. I’ll tell them I exist.
Andrea: It’s late, babe. I was just telling a friend about you, not a doctor. Going to sleep some. Love you.
Diana: Sleep well. Love you too. XOXO
Reading her messages, I muse, “She doesn’t know you’re in Rome, does she?”
Andrea pulls a face. “Technically, no.”
“I thought you didn’t lie. But those are two lies you’ve confessed to.”
She heaves a sigh. “Technicalities aren’t lies.”
I reach out with my free hand, and though it’s strange, I brush my fingers through her hair.
The side closest to me is spiky, short, and a little crispy, but moving around against a pillow has mussed it up some. My fingers drag against the scar, and the ruffled skin rams home just what this woman went through.
She deserves my empathy, my sympathy, and yet, that isn’t what I feel.
In all honesty, I don’t even know what the hell I’m feeling.
Gnawing on the inside of my cheek, I watch as she kind of stretches like a cat being stroked at my touch. Her eyelids flutter closed and she turns her cheek toward me, like she’s giving me better access.
The sight does strange things to me.
My belly feels like it’s in a freefall, my body wants to move closer, but my head knows this isn’t possible.
She’s sick.
It’s wrong.
“I’m not sick.”
Her words have me tensing.
How the—
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you’re thinking,” she rumbles, sighing some more as she snuggles into the covers which, for some reason, puts her scant inches from me, because I can feel her breath on my chest.
My bare skin.
I shudder.
It’s been a long time since someone has been this close to me, and it feels good.
Beyond good.
And it’s not the kind of temptation I thought I’d face after so many years in a cassock.
The temptation for contact, skin to skin, for affection and warmth, intimacy, is almost overpowering.
“Don’t tense up,” she mumbles sleepily.
I sigh at the sound of her tired voice, and I get the feeling that she could go to sleep, but I still need answers. It makes me feel like I’m diving headfirst off a cliff, but I tuck my hand around the back of her head and gently press her into me. Her forehead connects with my chest.
At that moment?
I’m in a world of confusion.
My back is aching like a bastard. Normally, I like that feeling. It’s grounding. It makes me feel like I’m still on this plane of existence.
Then, my front? Is in Heaven.
For her to be this close, her softness against all my hardness?
“How have I lived without this for so long?” My words are soft, barely whispered on my breath, but she hears them.
She was born to hear them.
“You weren’t ready for me, and I wasn’t ready for you,” she replies sleepily, then pats me like I need comforting. Like her words make complete sense.
And damn, maybe they do.
I gulp, process, then inquire, “What made you realize you were sick?”
“I’ve helped a lot of people. A lot—”
“And none of them could corroborate your story?”
Suddenly, she’s not so sleepy, and she huffs. “I shouldn’t need my story to be corroborated. Honestly, you’d think I was a criminal!”
I wince, because she’s right.
“And no. I either couldn’t get in touch with