Page 130 of Resurfaced Passion

And that terrified her into trembling.

How could she love and hate someone with the same amount of passion coursing through her? She was shaking. Livid.Upset. Fucking devastated to be honest.

All this time and she’d been unaware of who she was. The real her.

“I can’t wrap my head around this. This isn’t real. It doesn’t make sense why you wouldn’t tell me this huge-fucking-thing?”

“Paige…” he came forward, just about as gently if approaching a wild animal. “Let me take you home, we can talk properly there. I’m sorry he ambushed you, baby. So fucking sorry for that.”

“Sorry?” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re sorry now, Reaper? Oh. My. Fucking. God. My father is the least of my worries right now. H-how…god.. how did I even forget any of this—forget you?” Pain sliced and diced her; tears welled in her eyes and she felt the urge to scream and never stop. “No! Don’t try to hold me, you don’t get to hold me, you’ve deceived me for god knows how long, Reaper. I can’t—I can’t…”

His features darkened but it wasn’t with anger and he grabbed her hand, stalling her from running away.

“This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.”

“I’m sorry…”

The dry rattle of his voice quaked all her internal organs out of order. Shook them with a kind of upset that’s a thousand percent pure gut-twisting pain. Paige’s hand tensed in the clasp of his as she tried and failed to tug free—so much stronger, it was Reaper who let her hand go, reluctantly. The pain on his face mirrored her own but she was selfishly only thinking of what was buzzing in her own head, her own screaming thoughts.

“How… how…”

“I don’t know, baby. I’ve asked myself that every day. Just please know there’s reasons, okay? I had good fucking reasons.”

Oh. God. Reality crash landed and Paige pushed herself off the wall. “I’m gonna be sick.”

She only just made it to the bathroom before her knees met the tiled floor next to the toilet bowl and she lost the contents of her stomach along with every memory and emotion she’d ever felt in the last four years.

Aware he’d followed, she couldn’t do anything but retch. While her stomach emptied, his chest rose and fell against her back as he held her, a comfort and a torment combined. She felt each of his breaths as though they came from her own staggered lungs.

I love him too.Was her underline thought.

Not a leftover sentiment from the past, though she had no memories to speak of, she felt it was true in her heart as hurt as she was, her love right now wasn’t a fabrication.

I love him here and now.The Paige I am now.

His pain and his hope clung to her in a way that would never be washed off.

The tears and anguish kept on falling.

She felt so fucking lost, like she’d been put into a spin dryer and set on her feet to walk a straight line.

Amnesia. Married. Husband. Wife.

It all whirled making one giant noise in the back of her skull and through it all Reaper stroked her back, held his presence in check, rasping words of love she tried to block out.

Questions upon questions stood in front of her like a wall of soldiers too tall for her to climb over, and the man crouching at her back was the only one who had all the answers.

* * *

Then

For five days Jud sat by Paige’s bedside, holding her hand, willing her to open her eyes. Praying to any god to bring his heart and soul back. He watched the machines monitoring her vitals and willed her to wake up, to come back to him.

And on the sixth day she did.

“Jud-son?” Was the first croaked word out of her dry lips. Jud, in the midst of a disturbed nap jumped out of the hard-plastic chair he’d dragged over to her bedside and leaned over her.

“I’m here, bug.” Emotion clawed at his throat watching her eyes flicker open and focus on his face. There she was, still so swollen and bruised, but beautiful.

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