Page 224 of Under Her Skin

Jess had gone very still. ‘You talked to Camilla? Did Julesknow?’

The room echoed with their silence. ‘Oh Jesus…’ Jess sank to the floor, curling her knees up to her chest. Theo bent to touch her but she shied away fromhim.

For a long time no-one said anything then Theo looked at Max, who nodded and left the room. Jess got up and paced around the room while Theo watched in silence. Finally, she turned tohim.

‘This is my fault. My fault. He told me he would hurt people I cared about and I dismissed it as…why? It’s my fault Camilla and Josh are dead. I should just have let him killme.’

‘Stop it!’Theo was furious as she had ever seen him. ‘None of this is your fault. It’s him, it’sGachet.’

‘Who is my problem, Theo. I did this. I tried to escape from himand…’

‘You shouldn’t have had to ‘escape’ from anyone. What you went through… he’s a monster. How old were you when he first rapedyou?’

The question, so simple, so straightforward, made her crumple. Theo gathered her to him as she sobbed. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,’ his voice was gentle,’ but please, put it out of your mind that it’s your fault. We need to go to the police, tell themeverything.’

Her sobs subsided but she sighed, defeated. ‘They won’t believe me. They didn’t then and I gotpunished.’

Theo was silent for a long moment. ‘Then we need to break thatcycle.’

Jess was quiet for a long time before she pulled away from him. ‘I can stop this by… I can’t let anyone else get hurt because I fell in love with you. I need to take responsibility for that. I need to make this right. I need togo.’

Dread was flooding through Theo’s body as he took in what she wassaying.

‘Wait, Jess. You can’t be serious? Are you ending this? Us? No, no, we can’t let him win,please.’

He reached for her but she duckedaway.

‘No,Theo please, don’t, I can’t bear it. I love you, god, so, so much but we need to take so time to figure out everything. People have died, there’s so much damage.’ She was brushing her tears from her face and it broke his heart. ‘Please, just…. let me go. Give me time to figure how I can make it stop, make himstop.’

Theo nodded, trying to hide his heartbreak. He picked up her coat and draped it around her shoulders. Tipping up her face to his, he kissed her tenderly. ‘Okay…. okay, Jess you can have all the time you need, all the time. But know this. I’ll wait forever. I loveyou.’

Fresh tears poured her cheeks and he kissed them away. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered, ‘You are myheart.’

His gut twisted as he kissed her mouth then, tasting her lips, lingering, not knowing when he would kiss them again – if he would kiss themagain.

Eventually, she broke away from him and picked up her bag. ‘I have togo.’

Hand-in-hand, they walked to the door and he opened it for her, and – his heart shattering into a million pieces - watched the love of his life walk out ofit.

He called down to the limo driver. ‘Make sure she gets where she wants to gosafely.’

Then he hung up the phone and as Max came back into the room, he looked at his friend and knew he shared hispain.

‘She’s gone, Max. I had to let her go.’ And he began tosob.

Jules,parked in the shadows away from the gaze of the security guards, sat up as he saw her walk out of Storm’s apartment building. He smiled when he saw she wascrying.

‘Don’t worry, my Jessica,’ he whispered to himself, ‘You’ll be deadsoon.

So very, verysoon.’

Hurt With Me PartSix

It was so much worsethat she’d imagined. Jess bent over at the waist then when that wouldn’t quell the nausea, she darted to the small bathroom in her hotel room and threw up and up. When she finally stood, rinsed her mouth at the sink then went out to the suite, the papers were still there, the television reports were still on the t.v. and the photographs of her and Jules, young and apparently care-free, assaulted hervision.

‘Theo Storm’sGirlfriend’s Secret Shame’. Every word battered her, the lies, the hideous twisting of facts that made her a temptress who seduced every rich man she could – even her own step-brother, even as she was a young teen. Some asshole in the police department – more than likely with a kick-back from Jules - had leaked the police interviews where she’d been branded a fantasist, a liar. Everything, everything, was twisted and wrong and so evil she could barely breathe. She wanted to feel angry, searched for that feeling in the melee of emotions that overcame her but all she could feel was shame. Humiliation.Hopelessness.

The frantic rappingat the motel room door made her jump and she quelled, her entire body trembling as she stared at the thin wood framerattling.