Page 81 of Cara

“Strata had this. When I saw it, I… truly wanted him to kill me.”

My eyes strain wide. “Howdid you get this?”

“I flew to Madrid when you disappeared. I missed you by mere days.”

Another blow.

I don’t know how many more I can take tonight.

He scowls in disgust. “The place was destroyed, and your blood was on the ring. He was very convincing… It didn’t help that the owner of that café kept saying they heard screams, that a body was being dragged out of the harbor.”

“Jesus.”

“In a meeting I arranged to get my hands on your father, he placed your picture on the table. You in your wedding dress, and I knew your location had been compromised.”

“How long did it take you?”

His brows dip together. “How long?”

“To find where I lived.”

He draws in an unsteady breath, pushing onto the pile of pillows. He speaks when I place my hand over his, encouraging him to confide in me. “I meant what I said when we said goodbye. I did plan to return to my father and focus on anything but where you had gone. Sometimes, I wished Bo had never told me. Because the moment he did, nothing was going to stop me.”

I'm going to Spain. Tell him.

I should hug Bo when I see him. He kept his promise.

“From the moment I was free… I knew where you were,” Xavier eventually breathes.

My hand has gone still. He traces the lengths of my fingers,giving me a moment to process it. He’s always been possessive. Hearing this would have caged me in when I married him. I’m clearly a different woman now, as fresh tears score my cheeks.

Because what he’s saying, what he’sreallysaying, is that he’s never left me. And all that time I believed I was fading, his eyes still searched for me, half a world away.

He doesn’t expect it when my chest resolves to his, when my head bends toward his skin.

His sharp intake of air fills the room.

When my lips part against his salt-kissed skin, on the underside of his chiseled jaw, his hand cradles the back of my head. The bristles scattered along his chin graze my lips as I slide them inelegantly towards his mouth.

I cast his hair back with both hands, gazing down at him, watching his eyes close, dense lashes fluttering every time my mouth finds him.

He breathes like he hasn’t been able to in four years.

I soak in all of his mannerisms, some new and some familiar. The way his dark brows trough when he thinks I might stop. How his jaw sets when my fingers coil into his unwound curls, tugging ever so gently. How, when his eyes peel open, hazed with desire, he isneverthe first one to look away.

After all this time, I see it so clearly, written plainly on his face.

Longing. Need. Desperation.

It reveals itself through his fingers as they glide over my shoulders, cascading down my spine. It exists in the stillness of his body nestled beneath mine. In the virile presence between his legs, firm beneath his slacks.

He is nothing like those who hurt me.

Every inch of him reminds me that perfection is somehow within reach. I'm acutely aware of his beauty—those emerald depths, his dark lips slightly parted, the incline of his chin, the curve of his sharp cheekbones.

My thumb brushes against a soft mark established near his brow, taking my time to reacquaint myself with his body.

The sheen between his breastbone visualizes his restraint.