Page 81 of Saving You Losing Me

Candy rounds the counter and pulls me in hard and as she holds me tight, she whispers, “Atom loves you, Clara. Any foolwith half a brain can see that. He always has and the day he watches you walk out of the door, hell will freeze over and the world will end.”

CHAPTER 44

ATOM

It’s been two days since I issued Clara an ultimatum. I haven’t slept. I’m off my food and antsy as hell. The other angels have kept away as much as possible because when I’m in this mood, it only ends badly for everyone around me.

I asked her to marry me and then told her it was her ticket out of here. I meant it. I can’t operate knowing she is under my roof. Sleeping in the same building. Showering. Laughing. Existing.

I’ve tried to fuck the willing women who line up at the bar every night.

I don’t want them.

There is only one woman who had power over me and it appears that knowing she is in the same building has castrated my libido.

Nobody compares to her. They never have.

The trouble is, I haven’t got a fucking clue where we go from here.

Lust turned to betrayal in the blink of an eye. Love turned to hate followed by indifference. Now all three are coating the blade on my knife along with the blood from my heart as Istruggle knowing that when Clara chose Michael over me, he saw it as a written invitation to abuse her.

I am struggling with that. Images of her frightened face cowering under his boot keep me up at night. The gym’s punching bag has taken a beating from my fists, leaving my knuckles cracked as I pictured him.

His smug face stares back at me from the bottom of the beer bottle that ends up being smashed on the floor, joining the broken shards of my soul.

Knowledge is a powerful weapon and also the deadliest. It would have been better not to know the hell Clara has been living in for ten fucking long years.

I am damaged beyond repair, like the broken edges of the bottles I’ve smashed, and like them, it’s doubtful I will ever be whole again.

“Atom.” A soft whisper reaches me as I glare into the glass of whiskey that promises a harder kind of numbing.

My skin prickles as the familiar tones wash like a balm across my patchy soul.

“Um, well, do you have a minute?”

My breathing is ragged as I spin and stare at the woman who has sought me out at my worst.

The bar emptied hours ago. It’s three am, and this barstool has replaced my bed for a few nights now.

Clara is nervous. Just one look into her pale face and pain-filled eyes tells me that. She is wearing an oversized sweatshirt and track bottoms and her feet are hidden inside fur-lined boots. Her dark curly hair frames her gorgeous face and those soft brown eyes are liquid pools of velvet.

She is the original dark angel and always will be and from somewhere deep inside me a spark attempts to scratch against the rusty touch paper that is almost spent.

“You told me to find you when I made my decision.”

I say nothing because even staring into her eyes resembles a knife driving deep into what’s left of my heart.

She wraps her arms around her body in a defensive move and I wonder if that’s a sign her answer won’t be to my satisfaction.

“I, um, came to tell you–” Her voice shakes and she shivers slightly and it strikes me how fucking cold it is in here right now.

Call me a fool, but I shrug out of my jacket and wrap it around her shivering shoulders, my fingers brushing against the bare skin on her neck, an action that may as well have electrified her skin.

Her eyes brighten and a grateful smile lights her lips and she whispers, “You always were the gentleman, despite everything.”

I can’t argue with that because where it concerns her, I have always played the gentleman. She brings out the side of me nobody else sees, and it’s one of the things I hate most about my reaction to her. I am not myself when she’s around and I curse Jet for putting me in this situation in the first place.

“I will.”

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