Page 13 of Fateful Reunion

“I could have helped you!” she ground out, pushing back the disappointment. He’d chosen a child over her. “We could have defeated the witches together.”

Charles smiled a sad smile and shook his head. “No. I had to enlist help from other witches I trusted, and had I shown up there with a vampire in tow, they would have killed you before I’d even had a chance to explain. I did it to protect you.”

“Bullshit!” she cried out. “You didn’t want me anymore. And your niece was just a convenient excuse to rid yourself of me.”

He didn’t lose his cool. “That’s not true, and you know it. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve regretted it a million times since.”

Tears tried to push to the surface, but she forced them down. “Damn it! Damn you! You didn’t even call me. You made no attempt to contact me. That’s how much you loved me?”

“Yes, that’s how much I loved you! Because had I contacted you, you would have been in danger, too. They would have tortured you to find out where I was. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let them hurt you, so I made sure nobody knew about you.”

Roxanne swallowed back a rising sob, preventing it from bursting from her lips.

“I deleted all evidence about you from my cell phone before I tossed it for them to find. When I erased our call history, my heart broke, and when I deleted the last photo of you, I thought my life was over. But I had a responsibility, a duty I couldn’t shirk.”

Roxanne turned away, unable to listen any longer. “You could have at least sent me a message.”

“You faked your death that night. I had no way of contacting you. And sending somebody with a note to our meeting place would have been too risky. Besides, if I had, you would have tried to find me.” He sighed. “It was better that you hated me. At least then you wouldn’t try to find me and land in the witches’ crosshairs. You’d be safe.”

“Safe?” she choked out. “Yeah, maybe from the witches. But Silas didn’t buy my staged death. He came after me.”

“Oh my God, baby, I’m so sorry.”

He cupped her shoulders, turning her back to him, but she shook him off. His touch brought back too many memories and with it a yearning to turn back time.

“I don’t need your pity. I killed him.” And it had felt good to stake the sadistic son of a bitch. The world was better off without him.

“How?” Charles’s one-word question was a mere echo.

“He’d sent his men away to deliver the appropriate punishment for my escape in private. He thought he could control me like he always did. But I had nothing to lose anymore. It gave me the strength I needed. I staked him, not expecting to succeed, thinking, hoping I would die instead. But I survived. Somehow. Silas was dead. I ran until I couldn’t run any longer. His men never found me.”

Charles nodded, his expression solemn. His gaze locked on her eyes, and his hand came up. “So strong, yet so vulnerable.” He touched her jaw.

“Don’t! You forfeited the right to touch me when you left me that night.” She averted her eyes, turning her head to the side.

“Look at me, Roxanne, and tell me you hate me, and I’ll never touch you again.”

If that’s all it took, she could do that. Slowly, collecting all her strength, she turned her head back to face his scrutinizing look.

“I hate you.” Her voice cracked on the last syllable.

His fingers brushed over her cheek. “Say it again,” he murmured, dipping his head toward her face, his gaze drifting to her lips.

“I hate you.” But the words were even weaker than before.

“I never touched another woman after you.”

Tears shot to her eyes. He wasn’t playing fair. “No… no…”

“I only dream of you. Of holding you. Of loving you.”

“I hate you.” She repeated it like a mantra, but it didn’t make it true. Yet it was all she could do to keep from breaking down.

“Maybe you do now, but if you gave us another chance…”

“It wouldn’t change anything. I can’t make twenty-three years undone.”

“But you believe me, don’t you?”