Page 78 of Arturo's Temptation

Fact was I knew I’d rather die than let any harm come to her.

Fuckin’ hell!

I cocked my head and looked back into the mirror. I could tell Isabella was uncomfortable but she was doing a great job of hiding it. But judging by the way he had been drooling all over her since the second they’d sat down, I’d say he’d never taken a girl out once in his fucking life. The tosser looked as though he’d come in his pants the second she looked at him in a certain way.

Just then, he curled a hair behind her ear and stroked her jaw with his thumb. I had to grip the underside of the table just to stop myself from marching over there and launching the dude through the damn window.

I was at war with myself and if I didn’t pull my head out my arse soon, I was likely to do something I’d regret.

I gripped the tablecloth as visions started sprouting in my mind like evil weeds, filling my gut with doubt. Bella on her wedding day. Laughing as she jumped into blondie’s arms with a swollen belly. Her surrounded by children that weren’t mine. I gritted my teeth as each vision burned worse than the first. That woman currently sitting on a date with another man wasbecoming the centre of my universe, and what was worse was… I had made her think she wasn’t.

What a fucking wanker I was.

I shoved my fingers into my hair and pulled. My mind was full of her smile and laugh. How it felt when she challenged me. The way she looked at me as though I was hers. A line from a Thomas Hardy novel I had read in school swirled round and round in my thoughts: “The irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find sweet pleasure somewhere, which pervades all life…”

That was Isabella. She felt like my fuckin’ lifeline.

After my parents had died I’d shut down and blocked people out. And for over a decade I’d been satisfied with that, moving aimlessly from one kill to the next to survive.

Until her.

The realisation struck me like a kick to the head. What if I’d gotten this all wrong? I was allowing some fucker out there stopping me from being with the woman I wanted. But who better to protect her than me? I could protect her and be the man she looked to with adoration and devotion. I’d worship every inch of the ground she walked on.

I had to tell her. If I didn’t, I was going to lose her.

If I hadn’t already.

Shifting in my seat, I wracked my brain with what to do. If she couldn’t accept or understand the reason why I had pushed her away and forgive me, could I let her go? Could I let her be with some other guy?

No.

She was mine.

I had to make her understand.

While I slowly went mad, that arsehole decided to put his hand on her bare thigh and slid it upward.

I didn’t fuckin’ think so.

I pulled out my phone and messaged her. Her reply impressed and infuriated me.

Not this time, princess.

I was up and out of my seat before you could say she was mine.

26

This date had beentedious from the moment I had arrived. While I sat there bored, Henry banged on and on about his sports cars, drinking on his family’s yachts in Costa Rica or his businesses. He hadn’t asked me a single question about my life. Not one. I managed to spend the first thirty minutes forcing a smile or a laugh here and there until my patience had given out.

“So, then I asked him, dude do you know who I am?” he started as I stifled a yawn.

“Listen, Henry, I love how enthusiastic you are about cars, clubbing and stuff, but honestly? It doesn’t impress me. Cars bore me actually.” I felt awful but there was no way I could sit for the remainder of the evening listening to Henry rabbit on about what car he got for his twenty-seventh birthday, or how many celebrities he’d drank with in what famous club.

“So, what do you like to do then?” He leaned forward, his knee brushing mine under the table.

Oh, finally! A question about my life.

“I like to read mainly, spend time with my family, and volunteer at a home for the elderly my great grandmother oncelived in.” I could tell he didn’t care. The second I mentioned family his eyes glazed over.

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