Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance 1(77)

Then Malcolm's arms snaked around me, holding me close and fast against his hard body, in the safe circle of protection that was his strength, his wealth, his kind heart buried under his father's poisonous teachings, and I cried harder.

I was just like my mother, trying to fix everyone except myself, screaming out things there were no words for in paintings that made no sense to anyone but me.

I was the damaged one. I was the one who should be jumping over the edge of the boat and into the hungry sea below. I was the one who ached and shrieked in silence, all my pain made pretty and nice with ink and color.

How dare he think of leaving, when I was the one who should want to go?

The sound of helicopters grew louder and louder. We were racing towards the waters off the coast of Turkey.

Finally Malcolm released me and pulled away. He stared at my face as the Turkish Coast Guard barreled toward us.

“Tears,” he said at last. “Tears. I've broken you.” Reaching up, he caught one before the sea wind whipped it away. “I thought... I thought I would at least feel satisfied. I wanted you to understand what it felt like to be me...”

He stared at the tiny teardrop on his hand, and I cried harder, until I couldn't even see him. “Why don't I feel satisfied?” he said finally.

I could barely find breath. “Because,” I choked out, “I'm not your enemy. I'm your friend.”

“Oh,” he said quietly. “Oh, no.”

His hands alighted on my shoulders and he drew me to him again. I cried harder, and now the thrumming sound of helicopters was so loud they drowned out the roar of the sea.

“I'm sorry,” he shouted in my ear. “I'm sorry I broke you.”

If I hadn't been so overwhelmed I would have kneed him right in his precious nuts. “You didn't break me, you cock!” I screamed over the helicopters. “Crying doesn't mean that at all!”

I felt his bewilderment rolling off him. “Then why would you cry?”

My hands came up of their own volition, tangling in his hair, pulling him down for a desperate, tear-stained kiss, and when I released him there was a strange sheen in his own eyes “Because,” I yelled, “I do understand. I'm listening to you, Malcolm. I've been listening to you since the moment we met! Everything you say, I've heard it. I'm listening, you dumb motherfucker.”

His hands came up and cupped my face and he leaned in, our foreheads touching. From the corner of my eye I saw men in riot gear sliding down ropes to the deck of the ship. “Then listen,” he said. “Listen to me.”

“I am!”

He closed his eyes. “You win, Sadie. You win. When you get back to New York, the white vase is yours.” And then we were torn apart and thrown to the deck by violent hands, and the last thing I saw as someone dragged me below was Malcolm watching me from where he lay prone, three men standing over him, their yells drowned out by the throb of the helicopters, until the whole world was chaos.#p#分页标题#e#

He never took his eyes from mine.





Chapter Fourteen

I cried from the moment we entered Turkish waters, and didn't stop until I was released from custody.

I don't remember much of what happened after I lost sight of Malcolm. Tears made the world blurry and unreal, and in my chest a black hole had appeared, a terrible, unbearable void that would not let me go. My very bones seemed to creak under the strain of withstanding the crushing gravity of a heart collapsed, and I sobbed out my agony.

Malcolm, who I fought so hard to save—I'd saved him. And I'd lost him. And I didn't know what to do about either of those things. My brain had been bleached by the sun, all my rational thoughts faded, leaving behind only the blinding white feeling of loss and longing. I didn't want to be separated from him. Not yet at least. It wasn't time. I wasn't ready.

Outside of my head, the Turkish Coast Guard was the first to deal with me, and after I sobered up and looked back on it I felt sort of sorry for them. People shouted at me in Turkish and English, demanding to know where the guns were stockpiled, but of course there were no guns. At least, I hoped not. The small part of me who still distrusted everyone, who never let her guard down, wondered, briefly, if Malcolm had been playing me the whole time and there were, in fact, stockpiled guns on board.

But if there were, they were stored in another dimension. The Coast Guard found nothing. To their credit, they covered me in blankets after it became clear I was having some sort of mental breakdown and stopped shouting at me for the same reason one doesn't shout at toddlers—it just makes them cry harder. They left me alone until we landed and the US took over.

That wasn't quite as pleasant as getting shouted at. The FBI—or CIA or someone, it was never quite clear to me—interrogated me several times, though they got nothing from me. Thankfully I wasn't being charged with a crime. Quite the opposite, it seemed, as Malcolm's list of sins now included kidnapping as well as fraud and embezzlement, and no one would listen to me when I told them I had been on the boat of my own free will. I may have been incoherent with grief, of course. That might have had something to do with it.