Page 90 of Blind Devotion
“There never was an us. Stop calling. I’ve already agreed to a new contract with someone else.”
For some foolish teenage reason, I still believed in us, even after that. I sent him letter after letter for weeks, hoping he’d respond. I sent him recordings of symphonies that I thought expressed my feelings better than words. I’d been a girl in love, desperately vying for the attention of a man who wanted nothing to do with me. What a twisted fate that I was in love with the same man again.
It took me landing in the hospital with a broken wrist a couple of months later for me to give up on him entirely.
I wrote with my left hand to him, begging him for help against my babbo. I told him everything he’d done to Mammina and me whenever Renzo was on one of his trips to Italy or another state. The writing was sloppy and all over the place. I waited for his response for weeks before I realized he never really cared if he could abandon me this way.
My heart was breaking all over again as I remembered writing my goodbye to him, stuffing the lion origami he made for me years before in an envelope, and shipping them. I never heard from him again.
I never let another man take advantage of my heart again either. After that, I closed myself off to the idea of a relationship. Not even seventeen, and I had already become completely jaded.
Only to land back on his radar three years, two months, and six days after his final phone call. To add insult to injury, hedidn’t even recognize me. What did that say about who we’d been to each other?
Now, I’d known him again for fifty-one days. This new him was different. He was colder, stronger, more driven. Things were different between us than they were before. They felt good, real, and heartfelt. But we’d known each other for nine years back then, before he dropped me like a dead fish. Where did that leave me now? He broke me once. I wasn’t going to let him do it again.
I ambled through the house in a daze. When I reached my room, I froze. It smelled like him. It wasn’t my room. It was ours. His, technically. His house. Where he threatened murder. Where he healed me. Where he took care of me. Where he kissed me and made love to me. Where he helped erase my trauma. Where he refused to bring up what happened between us for fear I’d leave him.
Maybe I should. Maybe it was what he deserved for the way he treated me. Or maybe I needed to let him explain and find a way past it. He was my Adrien. My first love, my only love.
I sighed, my body dragged down with exhaustion. Sleep was the only thing I cared about right then. Everything else would wait. Adrien would come back from wherever he was brooding, and we would talk like adults, get everything out in the open, and move forward. We had to.
I collapsed on the bed and pressed his pillow against my body, burying my nose into his lingering scent. It felt so right yet so wrong at the same time. My heart didn’t know which way to lean. At least if he tried to take his pillow from me to sleep, then I’d wake up and force him to talk this out with me. One way or another, we were ironing this out as quickly as possible.
Chapter 36
Mariesnappedthecurtainsopen. I groaned from the sudden burst of hazy light.
“Good morning, Mademoiselle Tessa. It is after ten.”
“So late,” I mumbled. Marie usually had the whole house up by eight during the week like clockwork.
I felt around the bed for Adrien. His side was cold, and his pillow still lay in my grip. I jolted upright.
“Where’s Monsieur De Villier?”
“He is in Germany, mademoiselle.” Germany? For business? Or for a kill, like Thibault had done weeks ago? “Did you not know?”
I swept a hand over my face. “I did. He told me.”
He hadn’t. Not a word. He even neglected to say goodbye or tell me when he’d be back. Not that I was going to admit that. Not when he’d told his staff but not his lover.
“He asked me not to wake you until now. Said you had a hard night but to remind you of the note he left for you. On your nightstand.”
I bent over, patting the furniture until I found the braille-embossed paper. I’d gotten quite good at reading it over the last few weeks. From the thick paper and uneven dots, this was braille Adrien had typed himself on his new braille typewriter. He’d learned beside me, not only to encourage me, but so he could understand this language with me. He bought not only the typewriter, but also a printer for larger texts like books—his way of showing he cared. Which I knew he did, even if his avoidance hurt. Even if my memories of what broke us were tearing me up.
“Do you have a phone that I could borrow, Marie?”
“I…it’s that…I shouldn’t…”
“He told you not to give it to me if I ask, didn’t he?”
“I am sorry.”
I blew out a puffy breath and shook my head, disappointed. What good did he really think this was going to do? I cradled my knees to my chest and rested my cheek against them. He really was that insecure about this. He really thought I’d leave him without an explanation. Was he wrong to worry? Was I being foolish to stay and wait?
Our love was like the sun. It was a blaze that shone through the darkness of the world, bringing warmth and joy where there was only emptiness before. But if you stared directly at it too long, it blinded you, and too much of it eventually burned you to a crisp.
My fingers swept over the words on the paper, the ones he’d made with effort for me, and only for me.
