Page 52 of Pride

I turned over to face him, my eyes now adjusted to the darkness of the room.

And when I saw him, I screamed.

A boiler suit.

A sack on his head.

This wasn’t Alex.

IT WASN’T ALEX.

But as I screamed, he slammed his hand over my mouth to silence me, and then he raised himself from the bed and straddled me as I lay there, my eyes wide with fear and my body thrashing, trying to push him off. But he was too strong.

The hand he’d used on me to do what made me want to throw up now, wrapped around my throat, and he squeezed hard.

My eyes bugged as his large hands covered my mouth and my nose, cutting off my air supply, and his other hand squeezed the life out of me.

He was going to kill me.

He’d abused me, and now he wanted me dead.

I tried to scream.

Through the pain and the struggle, I tried so hard.

But it wasn’t enough.

And eventually...

Everything.

Went.

Dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EMMA

Iwoke with a start, my breaths coming in heavy pants as I shot up in the bed, sweat soaking my body and the sheets around me. Anxiously, my head darted about the room.

“Emma, you’re awake. Are you okay?” Alex asked with concern from the corner of the room.

He was sitting in an armchair, looking a little dishevelled, like he’d slept there.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” I snapped, fear and anger fusing together to create a storm of fury inside me.

I pressed my hand to my neck as my mind replayed scenes I didn’t want to recall. But as my fingers probed and pushed at my skin, I didn’t feel any soreness. There didn’t seem to be any bruising. I didn’t feel like I’d been choked to unconsciousness.

“You’ve been unwell,” Alex stated, and I lost it.

“I wasn’t fucking unwell. You fucking drugged me.”

He shot out of his chair to come and stand over me by the bed, then sat down on the mattress beside me and said, “I didn’t drug you. Why would I do that? I would never hurt you, Emma.”

“I don’t believe you,” I hissed, scrambling across the mattress to put distance between us. “You stalked me, tracked me down in the fucking street and then demanded I get into your car. Andlike a fucking fool, I did. You wanted this all along, to force me here and drug me so you could do whatever fucked-up shit you wanted.”

“I wouldn’t have forced you to do anything,” he replied, looking at me with stunned wide eyes. “I didn’t want you getting ill in the rain. I wanted to help you.”