In The Darkness (Project Artemis #1)(32)

She watched as he narrowed his eyes and stared down at her, wincing as she finished speaking. All she wanted were the answers to those questions. She deserved those answers.

“Persephone, you’re home safe now. Don’t fight your father when he tells you he wants you to have security. You’re strong. You’ll forget everything that happened someday. Have a good life.”

He moved to leave, but she grabbed his arm to stop him. That’s all he had to say?

“Have a good life? You have nothing else to say to me? You were the only lifeline I had day after day. I came to depend on you, and you give me some throwaway Hallmark card greeting after all of that?”

Sheepishly, he looked down at where her hand sat on his arm and said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“You killed a man to protect me, Nick. How can you act like I’m some meaningless stranger to you now? Why won’t you even look at me?”

He lifted his head and she saw such pain in his eyes that her breath caught in her chest. “I can’t do this, Persephone. Have a good life and stay safe.”

With that, he pulled his arm from her hold and walked out of the gazebo and out of her life. She watched him leave and didn’t understand what had happened. She’d told him she understood why he did what he did.

Why wasn’t that enough?





Chapter Eleven





Nick tossed and turned for the third night in a row, still unable to forget the look of sadness on Persephone’s face as he walked away from her without saying what he knew she wanted to hear. He didn’t know which was worse, the look of utter betrayal in her eyes as he held her down on that bed or the look of hurt when he couldn’t tell her how he truly felt about her before walking away from that gazebo and out of her life forever.

This was how it had to be. That’s what he told himself every time he thought of her and how much he wished she could be right there in his arms at that moment. Better for her to think he never cared, that he was just some guy who felt nothing when he acted like those animals he pretended to be with. That would make it easier for her to get past all that happened.

At least he hoped that would be the case.

In truth, he had no idea. He believed Persephone was strong. Stronger than any woman he’d ever met. But strength might not be enough to overcome all she’d gone through.

Her father would get her the finest doctors in the world to help her. He’d spend his money to do whatever it took to make her life normal again. Not that Nick blamed him for that. As far as billionaires went, Marshall Gilmore turned out to be one of the better ones he’d ever heard of.

He’d expected his meeting with him to involve her father hurriedly stuffing a check into his hand and then giving him a quick goodbye before he was escorted out of the enormous house like some kind of second-class citizen. It didn’t happen that way, though.

Instead, Marshall Gilmore sat next to him in one of the two chairs in front of his massive mahogany desk and thanked him for saving his daughter. In his eyes, Nick saw genuine appreciation for what he’d done. And he’d shown that appreciation even more when he gave him an additional hundred thousand for his work.

It made him feel like a fraud sitting there listening to a father thanking him profusely for saving his daughter’s life when he knew what he’d done to her would stay with her forever. He tried to convince himself that in the big scheme of things, all things being equal, freedom was a hell of a lot better than still being held hostage, no matter what it took to get that freedom.

But all things weren’t equal. He knew that. The fact that a billionaire media mogul paid him four hundred grand to save his daughter like he was reaching into his pocket for change showed Nick the idea of equality had nothing to do with this situation.

And any mental bargaining he did to excuse taking her like he did showed in harsh detail that nothing about what they went through could be considered equal. Nick wasn’t equal to Persephone or her family, and his actions that day in that bedroom weren’t equal to her freedom.

All he could hope for was she would go on to live a happy life married to some wealthy guy who could give her enough love and enough things to make her forget everything of those weeks of her life.

In that hope resided one of the most painful parts of all of this for him, though. He wanted to see Persephone happy, but it made his chest feel like someone stuck a knife in him every time he thought of her happy with anyone else. Even some guy her father chose for her because of his net worth and ability to give her anything her heart desired.

He shook his head and pulled the pillow over his face. Whatever he thought he felt for Persephone as he fed her each day meant nothing compared to the chance she now had to be happy and safe. He couldn’t give her that. Well, maybe he could give her happiness, but not the kind she deserved.

The memory of her smile as he tried to convince her to eat some of that grey shit they forced him to feed her for the first few days made that wish of having her there in his arms come rushing back into his mind again. In the middle of the worst thing that had ever happened to her, she smiled at him and made something horrible sweet for just a few minutes. She deserved that sweetness for the rest of her life.

She wanted him to show her that he’d cared when he thrust into her as those monsters cheered him on. He knew that as he stood looking down at her in the gazebo a few nights before. He could have told her the truth. He could have said he knew it was crazy, but he’d begun to feel something real for her in those days he had to pretend to be one of the militia. He could have told her going into that room to see her each time was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise ugly thing he so desperately wanted to forget.