Page 147 of Star Claimed Omega
‘I was terrified.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I was drowning, Santi. They’ve been in my head for years. I don’t know where I end and they begin anymore. I wasn’t trying to use you, I was not of my own mind.’
He scoffed, a bitter, raw sound. ‘So when we made love, you were not in your senses.’
‘Nada. I didn’t mean it like that. What we exchanged was genuine. Until he took over, but the passion we shared was, and still is, authentic for me.
‘Fokkyou,’ he growled, his soul agony speaking out, raging.
‘Please believe me,’ she begged.
‘Why?’
‘Vern chose to punish me for standing up to him.’
Santi leaned in. ‘SoThe Sombra, its dead crew members and myfokkin’ heart were just collateral damage?’
His fury was so palpable, she flinched.
‘I see you refuse to understand my reasons, that if I’d had my way, I would never have chosen to hurt you.’
‘Like I said earlier, you did have a choice. You allowed your fear of pain and dread to override your option to do theright thing. You got distracted by your past, now I forgot your tomorrow, with me.’
‘You really can’t see I had no way to know if and when Vern was listening, and how he’d react.’
‘I don’t know what to count on,’ he snarled. ‘Or even to believe you at all.’
She winced and took a shaky inhale as they stared at each other, at an impasse.
Santi growled, shoulders shaking, fists clenched by his sides.
So much of him wanted to pull her in.
To press her against his chest and tell her none of it mattered. That their shared connection was enough,but it wasn’t.
‘I don’t know if I’ll ever trust you again,’ he rasped, slicing his eyes to the floor because if he looked at her, he’d unravel. ‘You brought chaos into my world. I don’t know how to come back from that.’
A silence cracked open between them.
‘I understand,’ she whispered. ‘I wish I had the chance to undo it all. I’d give anything to go back to how we were.’
When he could stand to glance up, his eyes met her wrecked face, eyes misted over, lips trembling, as if she were scarcely holding herself together.
Still, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
‘FokkSoleil, why does it still hurt so damn much?’ he growled, almost choking on the words, his heart slamming in his chest.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘It hurts me too, honey.’
They stood frozen, a pair of broken souls staring across a canyon neither knew how to cross.
Santi didn’t know whether he wanted to howl at the stars or fall into her arms and forget the world.
SOLEIL
Scarletta, where are you?
The sing-song voice in her head preceded a bang as the supply room door exploded inward, the floor shaking with the force of the breach.
Burgundy alert strips strobed along the walls. She turned, trembling, as the klaxons cut short.
