Page 48 of After Our Kiss

- Chapter Sixteen -

Georgia Mary King

Ipat the bed. “Do you want to... I don't know, stay?”

“Part of a new plan of yours?”

Bristling, I dug my nails into the mattress. “No. I'm just lonely.”

The raw pain that attacked his fine features left me stunned. “I know all about that,” he whispered. “Besides you, I haven't really been around anyone other than Lonnie. It's easier to be a recluse.” He stood against the far wall; his head tilted back, eyes at the ceiling.

It came to me in a sudden electric pop. “Am I the only girl you've kidnapped?”

“Yes,” he blurted.

“But—the news! I heard them.” The night that felt so long ago played through my mind. “They said you were the prime suspect in multiple abductions.”

Conway ran his finger along his knee. He twiddled with a loose piece of thread, then ripped it free. “I probably am. That white van was bought for cash, I guarantee it was used for some suspicious shit before Lonnie and I got our hands on it.”

“If it's not true, how can you be so casual about this? People are out there thinking you're some awful creature!”

“They're not wrong.” He tossed the thread aside. I watched it go, forgotten. “How many times do I have to say it? I'm awful, Georgia. I'm a fucking demon. I belong somewhere worse than prison. What do I care if the world thinks I kidnapped one girl or fifteen? I'm guilty enough without them getting the facts straight.”

“It does matter,” I insisted.

He dropped his eyes onto me. “Why, so you can decide for yourself if I'm worth saving? I'll let you in on a secret, Georgia. I'mnotworth saving. None of me is.”

I didn't know when I'd started shaking my head, and I didn't know if I could ever stop. “No! Just no! You've done nothing wrong, it's all an act.”

“You think this is a costume?” he asked scathingly. Running his fingers down his chest, he pointed at the door. “This place isn't pretend! This situation isn't a game! You're scared to accept what's true—that I'm your enemy.”

“Prove it.” I stood off the bed in the clean jeans and soft sweater he'd gotten for me on the way back to my room from the bath. But I didn't move closer to him. “If the only thing you've done is kidnap me, then it's up tometo forgive you. And I can! I will! So what the hell is holding you back, how can you keep insisting you're evil when the facts say otherwise?”

“Because of Anna!” he roared, throwing his arms down.

My tongue wouldn't move, but it didn't have to. He knew what I would have said next.

“You asked about her before.” His head swung low, pushed down by something greater than any external force. “She's the proof that I'm worse than scum. The reason I'm so tired of hearing you tell me I'm not a broken, terrible excuse for a human being.”

“Oh, Conway...” Pain moved through my heart for him.

Air rushed from his nose. “She was the first woman my father kidnapped,” he said softly. “The one right before you.”

The tiny drumbeats in my chest exploded. If Anna was the girl before me, that meant...

“Yes,” he said, examining the shock on my face. “She's the one who died.”

“They never found her body,” I whispered. “The police looked everywhere on the property. I don't think they believed me, but I believed you. I was sure she was there.”

Conway's head fell even lower. “My father made me bury her in the woods, miles from the house. It'd be hard for anyone to find her bones.”

But not for you,I thought, sensing his regret. “Conway, how did it happen? How did she die?”

“I killed her.”

A whistling began in my ears. “What?”

Conway approached me as slowly, one toe in front of the other. His eyes were hollow. “I killed her,Georgia.” Another step. “I was supposed to keep her alive, that was what he asked me to do, and it was a job I fucking hated but it was better than... than anything else he could have asked of me.”

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