Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
She cups my chin shutting me up. “We fight back those demons together. One nightmare at a time. I’m not saying you can’t sleep with me and I’m not saying I’m going to force you to, but you keep telling me we do this at my pace. You have given me all this attention and pulled away when I’ve practically humped your leg. You have been nothing but gentle with me. We have faced death together, Jennings. We can battle some dreams until we beat those too.”
“Fuckin’ gift,” I whisper before I devour her mouth in mine.
CHAPTER 15
Michele
ONE MONTH LATER
“Like you in my shirt,” he tells me and I find myself smiling.
I smile, “I seem to like your shirts,” I tell him as he comes out of my shower.
Life is odd.
It is awkward not having secrets anymore. Spending so many years keeping a low profile, not really making serious friendships, it’s different now. The weight of what I escaped doesn’t loom over me anymore either. It’s unusual to live life exactly as it comes day to day.
Deciding to stay in Creekdale, I also have decided to leave the past in New Jersey. Leigh Michele Range is gone and Michele Leigh Cramer is doing pretty darn good.
Benny survived and once he healed enough to travel, he was a ghost again. A ghost with rules. One that promises not to see me or reach out to me again. In return, I promise to not divulge what he does, who he is, what we once shared, and more than anything I promise to allow myself the freedom to move on. A sad but necessary kiss goodbye and that chapter of my life is closed.
I have to admit the multitude of emotions being around Benny brought up inside me. Once upon a time, I thought we had something special. Now, I know the truth. While yes, in time Benny truly fell in love with me, our relationship began on a lie. The only reason he ever entered my life was to get an inside way to Giulia. Learning this it cut deep. In my naivety, I loved the man and I loved him with every ounce of my soul. Even when I learned about his occupation, my love for him didn’t change. My fears won over and I left for self-preservation. Sure, the time spent planning my exit emotionally I was distancing myself.
In the end, though, love is love, and I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. His life wasn’t for me and I knew that. He knew it too, but for a while he thought he could keep me safe. His love and adoration for me, for what we had built is the only reason he didn’t push me away. However, when I decided to leave, he wasn’t going to chase me. He assumed Giulia had shared with me his original intention. He would rather let me hate him then drag me back into his world.
As confusing and toxic as all of it sounds and truly is, I can understand him better than I did when we were together.
What Benny never knew was Giulia’s need to guard my heart from any more pain and trauma meant she would take it to her grave that Benny was with me to kill her. Her desire to see me happy is also why he got to live after telling her his intention to kill her and the order coming from some Irishman. Giulia tells me not to worry, but I do.
If this man wanted her dead before, what changes now? It’s been years, is he still after her? I don’t know and she won’t share. Since returning to New Jersey, she is back in her world. We chat briefly each night to check in. She doesn’t share her business and work, but always checks on me. And for the first time in my life, she encourages me to see where things can go with Jennings. Apparently, after her background check, their meeting, and her seeing us together, she thinks this is the best place for me with the best man for me.
I don’t know if it’s all the best. But I do have a good life here in Alabama. I have a man who truly is willing to put me first. Sometimes I think he reads me better than I can read myself. Where things will go, I don’t know, but I do know I don’t want it to end right now.
Kitty too has healed. Thankfully, she isn’t upset with me even if I still do blame myself. She is the one who has given me the idea to turn a scar into art with a tattoo. I haven’t shared this with Jennings yet, but I want to.
To cover her bullet wound and the surgical scar, she has a back tattoo now of a phoenix. The paralysis in her lower extremities was the bullet pressing on a nerve. Once it was removed and the inflammation calmed down, her legs regained feeling. She is still in physical therapy learning to overcome the challenges of not walking for a couple of weeks.