Starved For Love by Nicholas Annie

Author:Nicholas, Annie [Nicholas, Annie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises
Published: 2012-09-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

I dropped Val off at the entrance to his hotel, refusing the invitation for dinner. After everything we’d shared, I needed time apart to think, to feel, before facing Sin together.

Entering my house, I paused and listened. Quiet blanketed the building. My sisters must be gone but my dad’s car sat out front still. I crept upstairs to my bedroom, praying for solitude.

My insides were raw and it hurt. The memories of Pierre scorched me each time I pulled them out. I knelt by the short wall by my bed, where the roof sloped to meet it, and pried open a loose floorboard. Crammed in the hole was a shoebox. Not an original hiding place but it worked. I struggled to pull it out and opened the lid.

I hadn’t kept much after Pierre left me. It all fit in the box. Lifting a picture, I stared at the human with the blond good looks of a boy-next-door and the chocolate-brown eyes that had melted me each time our gazes had met. I was over him.

I was.

I had to be.

Hunched over the open box, I stared at the contents and my stomach went sour. I’d lied to Val about not seeing Pierre again. He never saw me, but I went to his wedding and sat in the back of the church behind sunglasses, a wig and a stupid hat. A glutton for punishment, I needed to see him happy. It gave me closure.

I closed the box once more and glanced at the hole in which I’d secreted it for two years. What had Sin said to me once? Something about how fire could cleanse a soul. I always wondered what his cryptic words meant, but he was right, fire would cleanse me. Creeping back downstairs, I peeked into the study and found it empty. I breathed a sigh of relief and scurried to the cold fireplace. The kindling rested in a metal container. On my knees, I went over Cooper’s instructions for how to build a fire. We’d spent an evening in his backyard stargazing over the summer and he couldn’t believe I’d never made a campfire.

Kindling, check. Lighter, check. A few small logs, check. I didn’t require a bonfire, just something small enough to break my ties to the past so I could focus on my future.

Time for me to forgive myself.

I lit the kindling and tossed the contents of the box on the fire. Ticket stubs to a concert we went to, three love letters he’d written me and a dry rose. They burst into flames upon contact. I glanced at the picture one last time. Even if things didn’t work out between me and Val, I knew I was finally ready to move on. I set the picture on the kindling and added the logs.

“What are you burning?” My dad strolled in and sat in the leather chair facing the fireplace.

“Memories.”

“Hmm.” He watched in silence. Having him witness my past go up in flames helped anchor my reality.

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