Page 57 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Forty-Two

“But the more I sat still and dug into my inner well of thoughts and shadows,the more I felt a guilty and painful twang within me.”

― Nick Oliveri:

Scarlett

Théo collapsed to his knees, sobs tearing through him, chest convulsing like something had broken loose from deep inside. His hands slammed against the stone, palms splayed, shaking.

There was something violently wrong about watching a man that strong come undone. On his knees, stripped of everything.

My legs gave out. I dropped beside him, hands clutching his shoulders, burning with the same fire that had already been devouring me.

The moon caught his eyes when he finally looked up.

And God, he looked ruined.

Not hurt. Ruined .

There was something in the way his face twisted, something so raw, so hollowed out, that I would have torn my own soul out of my body if it meant I could take that pain from him.

“There,” he choked, voice cracked and hoarse. “Now you know everything.”

A silence stretched between us.

“That’s who I am, Scarlett.” His eyes didn’t leave mine. “A man whose selfish desires killed his own father.”

My throat closed. I reached for him, my hand trembling as I brushed away a tear sliding down his cheek. His eyes shut like he couldn’t bear to be seen anymore, and I hated how small I felt beside the weight of his grief.

That was the reason he didn’t celebrate birthdays .

“Has he passed?” My voice cracked on the last word.

He let out a hollow scoff, part laugh, part sob. “He’s been in a coma for fourteen years, Scarlett.”

He paused, his breath catching.

“My mother still won’t pull the plug. She sits by his side every single morning and tells him she loves him. Says she knows he can hear her. Says hope is all she has left.”

My hands dropped to his cheeks. “Have you visited him?”

A sob tore from his throat as he nodded, jaw clenched.

“Only once. A week before I pulled you out of that fountain.”

My brow drew tight. My chest already ached, but something in me twisted harder.

“Two days after I got out of the hospital, I went to see him. Kissed his forehead goodbye.” His voice came low, hoarse. “And that same day, I enlisted. No fucking hesitation. I didn’t want peace. I wanted punishment. I wanted pain in every bone of my body until I couldn’t feel anything else.”

Waves slammed into the rocks behind us, cold spray lashing our skin, wind clawing at the back of my neck.

My heart broke for him even more when I realized everything around us must remind him of that night.

My beautiful broken star, swallowed in endless darkness .

“I spent the next nine years letting the world tear me apart. Military ops, blood, heat, bruises stacked on bruises. Some of the damage still burns. Some’s carved so deep I’ll never get it out. But it helped me stay in control. Gave me something to bleed for.”

He blinked slowly, eyes hollow.

“Then after, I became a bodyguard because it was the only way to stay busy enough not to snap. My mother came to visit the bases. Came to New York too. Always begging me to go back and see him. Said ten years was too fucking long.”

He looked down, voice shaking.

“But I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at him. Not when I’m the reason he’s like that. I didn’t deserve to be in the same fucking room.”

The wind whipped around us. I could barely breathe, like the sea was trying to pull the oxygen straight out of my lungs.

“But I did go,” he said quietly. “Because she begged.”

I watched him as something deep inside me cracked.

“When I saw him, Scarlett?…?I wanted to fucking die. Right there. I wished I could open my veins and bleed out on the floor beside him. He looked older, but everything else was the same. Pale. Silent. Frozen. Gone .”

He wiped his face on the back of his hand roughly.

“I lasted two hours. Then I puked in the parking lot and got on a plane back to New York.”

He finally looked at me.

“On my last night with the Dawsons, I walked through their maze. I used to go there when I needed to shut everything off. That night, it wasn’t about shutting it off. I’d made up my mind.”

His voice cracked, raw as an open wound.

“I was done. With the world. With myself. I was going to stroll through there one last time before blowing my brains out with the bullet waiting on my nightstand.”

His eyes held mine like they were the last lifeline he had left.

“But then I met you. My beautiful shooting star.”

The breath I’d been holding left my lungs like I’d been punched in the chest.

à Dieu, mon étoile filante .

“And you?…?you fascinated me. You fascinated me with that filthy mouth and those fucked-up, hopeless words. You looked like a ghost, Scarlett. The same kind I saw in the mirror for years. Your pain felt like mine, carved into skin, echoing in silence.”

The wind shifted, pushing my hair across my face. The waves behind us slammed harder against the rocks, each crash a jagged heartbeat in the dark.

“We both wanted to die that night,” he said, voice unraveling. “But something, maybe fate, God, fucking coincidence, I don’t know?…?shoved us into each other instead. Saved us both at the same time.”

A low, broken sound escaped my throat. Half sob, half laugh. My tears blurred the shoreline, the moon, the shape of him in front of me.

My heart was splintering. And it didn’t stop.

“I carried you to some guest room,” he went on, quieter now. “You were half conscious, glitter smeared across your skin, soaked in sadness. I should’ve left it at that. But something inside me refused to let go. So, I took your necklace, to keep a piece of you close to me.”

His jaw tensed. His voice dropped.

“I didn’t just want to know you. I wanted to live under your skin. Protect you. From yourself. The way my parents tried to protect me. Only I wasn’t gentle with it. I was fucking consumed.”

He stared at me, eyes bloodshot, every inch of him trembling.

“I know it’s twisted. Call it stalking, call it obsession, call it whatever the hell you want.”

His hands dug into the ground, knuckles pale.

“I watched you. I followed you home. I memorized the way you walked, the way you disappeared into yourself when no one was looking. And yeah, maybe it was fucked, but it kept you alive?…?and me.”

His voice fell to a whisper.

“Protecting you was the only thing that made me feel human again.”

I should have screamed. Should have slapped him. Should have run until the sea dragged me under.

But I didn’t.

Because my heart only felt full when it was near his.

“When you left for France a year ago, was it to visit him?”

He nodded, and his lips shook.

“Yeah,” he breathed, voice splintering. “I promised my mother I’d come?…?and I did. But I only visited her. I couldn’t bring myself to see him.”

My eyes lifted to the sky, where a thousand grieving stars bled light through the darkness. They hovered above us, watching us in silence, close enough to mourn with us.

My voice slipped into the cold night.

“Why didn’t you save me from rehab, Théo?”

He let out a slow breath, his hand reaching for mine.

“Because deep down, you needed it. You needed to be cleansed of your addictions. They were tearing you apart, Scarlett. Eating you alive.”

His fingers closed around mine, trembling.

“I fucking hated that it was forced on you. That they stripped you of the choice. That it wasn’t me who took you there, who helped you get clean the right way.”

He paused, jaw clenched like the words hurt to let out.

“That’s why I worked in that place for a year. Because I couldn’t leave you, even then. I was right there, and you didn’t even know. My guilt kept my mouth shut.”

I knew too well what he meant. How guilt festered from the inside out and froze your life in place. It didn’t scream. It didn’t cut cleanly. It lingered. It poisoned.

It stole your sleep first. Then your voice. Then the pieces of you that used to feel like home.

That was what guilt did.

It turned your heartbeat into an echo. Your memories into blades. It made your own mind a battlefield, and you never got to win.

“You saved me, Scarlett. In a way no one ever has. In a way I never believed was possible. And I will carry that debt until my last breath.”

His voice shook, barely more than a whisper.

“Forgive me. For the lies. For the silence. For the pain I put in your chest when all I ever wanted was to keep it safe.”

He looked at me like it hurt to breathe.

“For making you feel alone, when you were never anything but mine . Because from the moment I saw you, something in me quieted. Something in me finally knew peace. Your soul is the only place mine has ever truly belonged.”

He brought my hand to his lips, holding it there like a vow, and I closed my eyes. Because part of me wanted to believe him. But the rest of me needed to see it. To feel it. I needed proof. The kind that didn’t come easily.

“Then prove it to me, Théo.”

His lips brushed my knuckles. “How?”

I opened my eyes, my chest heavy, but steady.

“Take me with you. Let me face your worst mistake beside you.”