Page 26 of Outcast’s Return

Those words... they were cruel. This was not her. This was not Jolie. Surely it was a mistake, yeah? A joke, somehow. Not meant for my eyes.

But she sent it to me.

I read it again, for a fifth time, just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating the collapse of my world.

It wasn’t a mistake. She called me an orphan. That was the worst part. The words she knew would hurt me the most. A quiet rage was building in me, but I needed to act. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what has saved me countless times before. No wallowing in despair. Action.

I picked up my phone and tried to call her. It canceled on me immediately. That meant one thing.

She had blocked me.

I threw the phone against the wall and fell back into my chair.

I must’ve sat there in that hotel room for hours in disbelief.

Then the denial set in.

It was all there, on my computer screen, in black and white.

Just an orphan.

I felt sick.

I didn’t cry. My humiliation turned to shame, and that shame added fuel to my rage. The anger I had kept simmering for years began to boil... the familiar anger I had felt in the months after my parents’ death, before Jolie came into my life... that same anger I once felt in my arms when I unleashed an act of violence. It was all coming back.

I picked up my laptop and broke it over my knee. The pieces smashed onto the hotel floor. My heart was breaking.

I never wanted to see her face again.

And she never got back in contact.

It took me a week of sleepless nights to finally come to terms with what was happening. And I had come up with a rule.

No more women. Career only.

Nothing else.

The boy Jolie Auclair once knew was gone. Never was I going to expose my innermost self to someone ever again. Never would I allow myself to be that defenseless.

That bare.

Never again.

I was an idiot. I’d been so stupid to give her that power over me.

In that hotel room on the other side of the world, as rain pelted the window, I promised myself I would never love again.

DAY ONE

8

JOLIE

Fabien drives without a word, his cold, gray eyes straight ahead.

Face blank.

Not even one look at me.