Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of The Phantom of The Opera by Colette Gale

Author:Colette Gale
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781440621000
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2007-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

“Christine! Please!” Raoul begged, holding her slender white hand in his. “Please tell me what happened during those days you disappeared. I’ve been trying to see you for weeks since your return, and you have been putting me off.”

“But I am seeing you now.” Christine looked away from his pleading blue eyes.

How could she explain to him that she had given her heart to another, only to have it rent from her? Destroyed by her own foolish choice, her own whim. How could she explain that she felt dead inside instead of alive, as she should feel now that she’d returned to the world of light?

“It has been three weeks since your return,” Raoul continued. “You have walked about as if you are no more than a ghost…a specter, hardly noticing me when I call after you. Please tell me what I can do to return a smile to your face…color to your cheeks…a sparkle to your eyes. Please…Christine, tell me how I can help you sing again.”

Her belly twisted. “I will not sing,” she told him, but she left some kindness in her voice. He could not understand, and she could not punish him for his ignorance. “And I fear that there is nothing you can do but allow me to recover. I am merely weary.” It was a lie, but what else could she say to such an earnest face, one that carried the illumination of obsessive love in its eyes?

“I told you I would still love you if you never sang again, and I will. But I feel I cannot allow it when I see how you are so ill. You must sing again.”

She shook her head firmly. Her eyes felt parched and heavy in their sockets. She had no idea how many times she’d cried them dry. “Christine, please. I have loved you for so long.…You can have no idea what I lived through when you were gone for those days. Please, at least tell me that you were not harmed…that he—it was he, was it not?—did not harm you.”

“He, yes, it was he. And he did not hurt me.…” Her voice choked and broke off. No, he did not hurt her in a way that left ugly red scars, purple bruises, or twisted limbs. A mangled heart, oui, but that was buried inside of her where no one could see.

She could never go back.…She might yearn for his love, his companionship, his tenderness…but she could not go back to that horror…that deep, burning anger and those ugly, twisted scars. His fury and hatred still scored her, as if he blasted her with a whip. He’d looked at her with loathing and repugnance, leaving her to cry herself to sleep, dreaming of his rages and his twisted face. When she awoke, she was back in her dressing room. Alone.

That was more than three weeks ago, and she had cried every night. She’d walked through the days in a stupor. She had been foolish, indeed, but Erik had sent her away.

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