CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“This isn’t me.”
I stared. “This isn’t you?” I repeated, unable to hide my dubiousness. “What? Do you have a doppelganger running around somewhere, and she just happens to be missing, too?” I asked, voice laced with sarcasm.
Wisp huffed. “That’s not what I meant,” she muttered.
“Then what did you mean, Wisp, huh?” I demanded. Unable to stop myself, I snatched the newspaper out of her hands and pointed to the picture of her. “Look at this girl right here,” I said, thrusting it under her nose, “and tell me again that it isn’t you.”
“It is!” Wisp yelled, then snapped her mouth shut. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I mean, it was,” she amended, her eyes fluttering open, “but… not anymore.”
“Not anymore?” I parroted, my eyebrows raised to practically my hairline. “You can’t just decide to stop being someone, Wisp. You can’t act like you don’t have a past just because you don’t remember it.”
She crossed her arms, tilting her chin in a stubborn sort of way I knew spelled trouble. “Why not?” she demanded. “I mean, like you said, it’s not like I remember any of it.”
I clenched and unclenched my jaw. “Did you even read any of this?” I asked, shaking the paper. “You have a father out there who’s looking for you. A fiancé.”
I knew I was the worst kind of hypocrite for attempting to guilt-trip her about their feelings when I hadn’t given a rat’s ass about how either of them felt twelve hours earlier. I still didn’t.
Regardless, the way Wisp’s eyes widened confirmed what I suspected: that she hadn’t read the article in its entirety. “A fiancé?” she repeated weakly after a pause.
I grit my teeth. “Due to be married this weekend.”
Wisp blinked. “B-but,” she sputtered, “none of this makes any sense! Unless…” she frowned. “Do… do you think he’s the man from my dreams?” she asked.
I grimaced. “No,” I bit out sharply, unable to completely keep the bitterness from my voice. “I looked him up. His name’s Graham Vanderbilt, and he’s some rich asshole due to inherit billions from his father – the kind of man most women would cream themselves over.”
Wisp’s frown didn’t ease in the slightest. “But if my father or this… guy really cared about me, why didn’t they report me missing until now?” she pointed out sensibly. “It’s been weeks.”
“I don't know,” I admitted, tossing the paper onto the table. “Maybe they thought you got cold feet and took off. They probably figured you’d have come running back by now, but since you haven’t…” I trailed off.
Wisp pursed her lips. “But what about the man from my dreams?” she pressed.
I threw my hands in the air. “I don't know, Wisp,” I snapped. “They’re dreams. Your subconscious probably just made him up. I checked, and neither Vanderbilt nor your father comes close to matching the description you gave me of him.”
Wisp shook her head, denial still radiating from her small form. “I wouldn’t have just run for no reason,” she insisted.
I was growing frustrated by her resolve, a small part of me having held out hope that when she saw the article, Wisp would have been eager to get out of here – away from me – and reconnect with her father, at the very least. But I think I always knew deep down that it would come down to this, that I would have to force her.
Hardening my heart, I took her by the chin and forced her widening eyes to meet mine. “You can’t know that for sure, though, can you?” I asked, voice low and mocking.
Wisp bit her lip, something resembling hurt flashing in her eyes. Like he could sense her distress, a warning growl rumbled through Thane’s chest.
He, too, howled his displeasure, but I steeled myself against it – against the suspicious sheen that was suddenly shining in Wisp’s eyes, too. Because I would do whatever it took to protect Wisp, even if that met hurting her.
“Hey, I’m not judging if you’re a flake,” I added, releasing her chin and shrugging a shoulder, making sure to keep the movement loose – nonchalant. “After all, I just fucked someone I knew was engaged.”
Wisp looked like I had sucker-punched her – her shoulders curling inward and her arms tightening across her chest like they could somehow protect her from the harshness of my words.
I wanted to rip out my own fucking tongue.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, voice this tight, little thing. “Why are you acting like this?”
She kept asking me a variation of the same question, and I finally had an answer for her.
“I don't know, honey,” I said, my tone twisting the endearment into something snide. “Maybe because I just found out that the girl I’ve been harboring the past three weeks is the runaway brat of some millionaire senator, and it’s my ass that’s on the line if someone finds her here.”
Wisp shook her head. “But you knew that last night!” She blinked, realization dawning in her eyes. “You knew it last night,” she repeated softly, “and we still… you still…”
“I still fucked you into the mattress until you were sobbing my name,” I finished flatly for her.
Wisp’s entire face flushed – from embarrassment or anger, I couldn’t tell, but she was tomato-red from the tips of her ears to where her skin disappeared under the collar of my shirt. “But you weren’t like this!” she protested fiercely. “You were sweet, and kind, and…” She paused, her forehead wrinkling as something occurred to her. “And you didn’t care about who I was before I met you.” Her eyes flickered to mine. “You didn’t care, did you?”
I wanted to deny it, but my jaw suddenly felt like it was wired shut.
Wisp’s eyes drifted to the side, gaining a glassy appearance, and I could practically see the cogs turning behind them.
“But that means you’re acting like this because you think that I care,” she muttered before her eyes cleared and they zeroed back in on mine. “You… you think I’m going to abandon you, don’t you?”
I still couldn’t talk, my chest uncomfortably tight with how easily she saw through me. I half-feared that if I opened my mouth, the truth would come tumbling out, and I’d beg her to stay with me forever.
My entire body stiffened when she reached forward and slowly – like I was a spooked animal – took my hand in hers. “Derek,” she entreated softly,” I could never just leave you. Don’t you know that? I… I don’t care about who I used to be. I just want you.”
It was a dream come true and my worst nightmare all rolled into one. Because none of it changed the fact that I’d hurt her. Discolored bruises and blood-smeared skin flashed through my mind, and I ripped my hand from hers.
I sneered. “Did you ever think that maybe I just wanted to get a good fuck in before the cops came to take you away?”
Wisp froze. “What… what are you talking about?” she asked.
“Don’t act like you haven’t been teasing me this whole time,” I accused, ignoring how tears sprung into her eyes, and the bear inside me roared. “I wanted to sample the goods before you left is all. And you spread your legs like a good little whore, just like I knew you would.”
Wisp’s big doe eyes were swimming with tears now – her face no longer red, but an almost deathly pale. Her bottom lip was quivering, and she looked seconds away from out-right crying. I prepared myself for the onslaught of tears.
“You… you’re lying!” she shouted instead, pointing an accusing finger at me.
I was thrown off guard by the declaration, but quickly shook off my surprise. I scoffed and pushed her hand away from me. “If I was lying, would I have already called the cops?”
That gave her pause. “What?”
“I called the Sheriff’s office last night,” I clarified. “He said he was going to send a trooper out here this morning. In fact, I bet he’ll be here any minute.”
Wisp still didn’t fold. She pressed her lips together, pulling back her shoulders to form a rigid line. “No.”
I stared. “No?” I repeated incredulously. “What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I mean, you can’t let that happen,” she said, an urgency I’d never heard from her before ringing in her voice. “Call them back! Tell them it was a mistake, or a prank, or… I don't know, something!”
I frowned, crossing my arms over my chest. “And why would I do that?”
“Because I want to stay here with you,” she snapped at me, glaring all the while. “And even though you’re acting like a jackass right now, I know you want me here, too.”
I snorted, shaking my head. “You’re wrong.”
Wisp scowled, releasing a frustrated little huff before, suddenly, she was right there.
She’d taken two steps forward, and grabbing me by either side of my face, she pulled me forward and smashed her mouth to mine. She moved her lips against mine in a desperate, pleading sort of way that squeezed at my heart.
When she pulled away a second later, she was looking straight into my eyes. “Please, Derek,” she said, running her thumbs over the shadows beneath my eyes. “I… I lo-ve you,” she said, her voice breaking on the middle word.
I was frozen, stuck between what I so desperately wanted and what I knew was best for Wisp. The bear thrashed under my flesh, fighting to break free and show her how he felt, but all the violent turmoil served to do was remind me that I was just as much animal as I was man. I was wild, uncontrollable… and capable of hurting Wisp as easily as loving her.
Moving carefully, I placed my hands on her shoulders, forcing her to release my face and take a step backwards before I allowed them to drop. “I don’t love you.”
The lie left a sour taste on my tongue and was harder to force out than any of the crass comments I’d flung Wisp’s way thus far.
But it was enough to finally make something in her expression falter. I saw the shock, and, Christ, the gut-wrenching hurt leak into her eyes before they fluttered to the ground.
I grit my teeth, firmly reminding myself that this was for the best. She would thank me for it one day even, when she was safe and warm, curled up next to her rich fiancé in some fancy bed, surrounded by anything and everything she could possibly want.
For a long moment, it was eerily quiet, Wisp perfectly silent and still as she stared at the floor. It was completely unlike her, and it caused a wave of concern so strong to rush through me that I almost broke character and pulled her into my arms, begging her to forget everything I’d just said and to never, ever leave me.
But Thane, who I’d all but forgotten about, broke the quiet a second later when he suddenly released a loud bark and scurried towards the front door, where he yapped some more.
I knew why a second later when the sound of an engine rumbling up the driveway reached my ears.
I knew that Wisp had heard it, too, judging by the way her shoulders stiffened, but even then, she didn’t look up from the floor. “It’s not going to work,” she muttered instead – so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it over the sound of tires crushing gravel.
I frowned, knowing I shouldn’t ask, but unable to help myself. “What’s not going to work?”
The engine cut off before the tell-tale sound of a car door being slammed reached us.
Wisp finally glanced up, her dark eyes staring accusingly. “You think that you can chase me away by acting like this. You think that I’ll hate you and leave willingly.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Footsteps advanced upon the front door, the floorboards of the porch creaking against the weight of whoever approached.
“But like I said, it will never work.” Wisp quirked her lips, the expression ironic and wrong on her face. “You already hate yourself enough for the both of us.”
The words were like a bullet through the heart.
I deserved it, and much, much worse. I accepted the castigation, relished in it, even – acknowledging the action as a small atonement for the anguish I’d caused her.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A series of sharp raps against the door popped the invisible (imaginary) bubble surrounding us, keeping us separate (safe) from the rest of the world.
Wisp looked like she wanted to say something, but after a moment, she just shook her head, keeping her lips pressed together in a thin, unforgiving line. As for me, despite the violent beast clawing at my insides, and the beautiful girl staring at me with betrayal in her eyes, I turned to open it.