Page 102 of In Doubt

Swallowing my pride and wrapping the blanket more securely around my body, I enter the kitchen. Jake’s waiting in there for me with a tall glass of iced water and some bread and jam.

“Where are the others?” I ask him as I take the water gratefully.

“They wanted to get out of your way. They’ve gone for a walk.”

“They didn’t have to.”

“They did,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and perching on the edge of a stool.

I sip the water, not appreciating how thirsty I am until the cool liquid hits my parched mouth.

It’s awkwardly quiet and I don’t know what to say to him. I can barely look at him, not when my eyes wander inadvertently to those lips of his and I think about how good they felt on my mouth, on my skin. Thoughts like that are dangerous things. They are what landed me in this mess in the first place. It’s strange though, that hours ago our naked bodies were entwined together and he was doing dirty, truly intimate, things to me. Yet now it is as if we’re miles apart, as if that impregnable wall has reformed between us.

My heart aches thinking about it. But I ignore it. It’s clear this thing between us, this thing that was blossoming and blooming, can’t work. I was a fool to think it ever could.

All along I thought that I couldn’t trust alphas because they were untrustworthy. Now I know the truth. It’s not them. It’s me. My ability to trust has been broken forever by that man.

“I’m sorry,” he says and although I can’t look at him, I know he’s looking at me. His gaze is like something heavy.

“You don’t need to say that.” I stare into the rim of my glass, the ice cube slowly dissolving into the water. I spin it between my fingers. “This was my fault.”

“Giorgie!”

I don’t want to cry. Not in front of Jake Grantham. I don’t want him to pity me. Hate me all you like. But don’t pity me.

“I thought I could handle this. But I was wrong.”

“A pack?” he asks. His voice cracks a little as if he’s trying to hold back an emotion I can’t read. Resentment? Probably.

“Alphas,” I say, finally raising my gaze to meet his.

He opens his mouth to speak, and a pain seems to flicker in his eyes before he halts. “What happened Giorgie?”

I don’t want to tell him but those blue eyes of his suck me in and the words slip right off my tongue.

“I was young. Just a teenager. And he was …” I cringe. “Older, charming, wealthy. He made me feel so special with all his clever words and his gifts. I thought I was in love. I thought he was in love too. He wanted to see me through my heat. I wasn’t sure. I’d never shared one before. But he was so keen, so persistent, so in the end I agreed.” I take a sip of my water, the rim shaking against my lip. “He filmed me. Without my knowledge. I didn’t know for a long time. Not until things started to fall apart between us. Until he started to try to control me. He used it as an axe over my head.”

The tight hand around my throat. The harsh words snarled in my ear. The pitch black of that room.

I blink it away, force it from my mind before it sucks me down again.

“I’m sorry, Giorgie,” he whispers and I’m dragged back to the here and now by the sound of his voice. “Where is he now?”

“Prison. Turns out I wasn’t the only one.”

A dark shadow passes over his face and I look away.

“I think you should eat something.” He slides the plate of bread and jam towards me.

“Yes,” I say. “Then if it’s OK, I’m going to take a shower and head back to the hotel. Would you call me a taxi?”

“Of course.”

The picture of the pyramids draws my eyes. I should unlock the safe and return their phones and devices. I’m not ready to do that yet though. Even if I know it’s irrational. That I’m not in heat anymore. Not vulnerable. The thought of those phones in that safe still make me irrationally sick.

I’m so screwed up.

I reach for a piece of bread and snap my teeth through the soft dough. The jam is black current flavour, a mixture of sweet and tart.