Page 18 of Ruin Me Gently

For so long, I’d convinced myself I had to keep accepting it. That every bouquet was an olive branch, every apology was real. That if I could just be better, be quieter, be more of what he needed—maybe he’d finally stop hurting me.

But none of it had ever been enough. And now, watching his bullshit blacken and crumble to ash, I finally understood why.

Because none of it had ever been enough. Because none of it had ever been me.

I felt none of the things I once thought I should.

No sadness. No guilt. No regret.

Just the quiet satisfaction of letting it all burn.

CHAPTER SIX

Lilith Vivienne Whitlock.

The driver had given me her address after making sure she got home safely. I hadn’t asked for it, he’d just been thorough.

I could have deleted it, forgotten about it. But I hadn’t, because apparently, I was incapable of being normal, and had to research her immediately.

Thirty-one years old. From some microscopic town in Maine I didn’t think anyone on the planet had ever heard of. It was so small I’d had to zoom in three times on the screen just to find it.

Her parents were gone. She had no siblings. No surviving relatives.

Normally, this stuff was clinical. Things I could analyse and use to my advantage. But this wasn’t clinical. This was personal, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was intruding on something I had no business being part of—because I was.

But I couldn’t stop.

After her mother died, she fell off the face of the earth. No trace of her at all. Radio silence, until nine months ago when she reappeared here in Seattle, like a ghost stepping out of the shadows.

She’d set up an Instagram account the same time. Not that it told me much. No selfies, no captions about her day or carefully crafted posts to make her life look better than it was. Her friend Molly had shared dozens of shots of them though, curled up on velvet chairs, laughing with oversized mugs of coffee or glasses of wine.

I knew it was wrong. So damn wrong. Deep diving into her life like this, peeling back layers of her existence like she was some file on my desk.

And yet, her name pulsed through my thoughts, uninvited and unstoppable. And with her name came the images, so vivid, like they’d been burned into my retinas.

Her silver eyes, like storm clouds catching the last sliver of light before the world went dark. Her black hair, spilling loose around her shoulders.And her lips. So soft, pink, perfect. The kind of lips that you want to press your own against and never come up for air.

It started with breakfast. A real one. Something I’d whipped up and left on her porch after that god-awful night. Just to make sure she ate. An innocent gesture. But then, it spiralled.

The stretch of sidewalk outside Sonnets and Spines had seen more of me in the last two weeks than my own damn office.

At first, it had been one quick drive-by. Just to check in. Just to make sure she was doing okay. That’s all it was. A glance. A moment. Nothing weird.

But then I’d seen that asshole through the window.

She’d frozen, until Molly had intervened, shielding her, saying something to make him leave. She’d come out of the shop twenty minutes later, pale and tight-lipped.

And that was it. That was all it took.

One drive-by turned into a few. A few turned into a walk past the window. Just a quick look.

But it kept happening.

I hadn’t seen him there since, but you could never be too careful with men like that, and that’s why I’d continued watching.

And of course I’d done my research on him too.

Clark Thorn. Up and coming news anchor. Golden boy.

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