Rhys pulls one hand from his pocket, and dangling from his finger is a set of keys. I clutch the window frame in horror. Are those keys to my apartment? Is he showing me that he can get in whenever he wants?
That bastard.
I fly to the door and run out of my apartment. Downstairs, I hurry out into the middle of the road. I want people to be able to see me if something goes down. Rhys is dressed in his usual dark gray suit. He looks the same as he did when I saw him at the police station, except now, I know what those lips feel like on mine. How those hands feel as he pushes my thighs apart, ready to fuck me how he knows I need it.
He holds out the keys and I step forward quickly, snatching them from him before backing off again. I examine them closely, but they’re not my keys. I’ve never seen them before. “What are these?”
Rhys is drinking me in like it might be the last time he ever lays eyes on me. “Keys to my cabin.”
My brow wrinkles in confusion. “Your cabin?”
Slowly, he nods. Damn, I wish he didn’t look so good just standing there. The keys are warm from his hand and my fingers wrap around them, making the most of that little piece of warmth.
“It took me years to save for that place. I got it just how I wanted it. It’s the only place that gave me solace when I was driven crazy by thoughts of you.”
I still don’t understand. If he thinks I’m going to go there with him then I’ll throw these keys in his face.
“You liked it there. It’s yours now.”
Rhys turns and starts walking away, and every nerve in my body screams in panic. This is how it ends? With a set of keys?
I call after him, “You think this makes everything okay? I don’t forgive you.”
Rhys turns back to me. “I know.”
“So what the hell is this?” I ask, holding up the keys.
“I only love two things. I figure they should be together.”
I feel like he’s punched me squarely in the solar plexus. Before I can recover, he’s already thirty feet away from me and his long legs are eating up the road. He gets into his car, pulls away, and is gone.
I stare at the keys in my hand, feeling like I’ve been given the worst consolation prize ever.
The keys sit on the windowsill in my apartment for the rest of the week. I don’t want anything from Rhys, even if it is that beautiful cabin. I’m mad at myself for even still thinking it’s beautiful after what happened there.
Rhys emailed me the deed and the place is legally mine. The best thing to do would be to sell it and use the money to get far, far away from Philadelphia.
And yet I feel stuck.
On the weekend, I rent a car and drive up to the cabin, hoping that looking at the place will give me some idea about what I want to do with it. It’s freezing, and there’s ice on the roads. I drive with tense shoulders, hating every second of this terrifying drive. With a few miles to go, it starts to snow. I slow right down, my stomach rolling with anxiety.
As the gates pull back, I see what I didn’t the night Rhys brought me here. A Christmas-card perfect cabin with a loveseat on the porch and ice lacing the roof. It’s a dream house. A haven from the world with its solid walls and inviting furniture, just glimpsed through the windows.
I unlock the front door, feeling like I’m in a daze as I walk from room to room with tears in my eyes. Rhys is there in every object. Every color. Every piece of furniture.
Except he’s not here, and he never will be again.
I stare at the bed where Rhys stripped me bare and showed me a side of him that I never knew existed. I should feel disturbed, but there’s only confusion and a longing so fierce it takes my breath away.
I find myself back in the living room and collapse onto the sofa. My cheek on a cushion, as I watch the snow swirl in through the open front door because I don’t have the energy to get up and close it. I can smell Rhys in the cushion, and I clench it tighter in my arms and sob. The cold is seeping through my sweater and I start to shiver violently. I hate this.
I hate this so much.
I reach for my phone with a shaking hand and dial a number. He answers after barely a ring. “Alaina?”
I close my eyes at the sound of his voice, tears shimmering on my eyelids.
“You’re at the cabin, aren’t you?”
The sound of his voice fills the aching void inside of me. Whenever I was scared, he was the one to pull me out.
“I’m drowning, Rhys.”
“Keep breathing, baby. I’m coming as fast as I can. Just keep breathing.”
The line goes dead. I stay where I am as the snow turns the carpet white. I don’t even feel cold anymore. The numbness eases all the wretchedness and loneliness in my heart.
Chapter Eight
Rhys
I run up the porch steps and through the open front door. The temperature in the cabin is below freezing and the heat is off. The carpet is strewn with snow.
Alaina is lying on the sofa in jeans and a thin sweater. She’s wrapped around a cushion and her face is paper white. I run to her with a cry of shock.
“Baby, what are you doing? Why did you do this to yourself?” Pain and guilt slice through me. I did this to her. I caused her so much anguish that she needed to hurt herself.
When I pick her up, her skin is frozen and her body is so cold that she’s not even shivering. I flick the heat on as I carry her
