Page 123 of Darkest Obsession

“I can’t go out tonight.”

He turns to me with a sad expression on his face. He acts like I’m the one who hurt him and not the other way around.

“I’m sorry for what I did, Thomas. I know I hurt people.”

“You did worse than that. You preyed on women. You preyed on mum. You’re my dad and you’ll always be my dad, but I don’t want to fight with you. I just want to walk away.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Cheers.”

I get out of the car and I feel free. I feel like I did the right thing by skipping dinner, by not letting him get away with talking about Clover or anyone else like that. Violet’s right about how we grew up. Everything was so fucking wrong. Look at how I turned out. I can kill and I don’t lose any sleep because as long as I can tell myself I did the right thing, I can live with myself.

That’s why I need to love her so fucking badly. I think loving someone like her is the only thing that could stop my heart from turning completely cold. Loving her could give me a purpose for these dark urges — a purpose that I desperately need.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Sylvia

Theo paces the hotel after our dance recital. We nailed the dang thing and now we can compete in the intercollegiate dance contest. The intercollegiate council moved the event to February due to an incident at the host school, Inverness, so we have even more time to practice before we show these Scottish chicks what’s good.

After our recital, Theo whisked me away to his new flat in London for the night. Everyone, including Crispin and Amina, thinks he’s sent me on a solo spa retreat as an apology and they think he’s with his ex-boyfriend Barnaby in Scotland.

I won’t lie, the ex-boyfriend thing bothered me at first but it’s hard to be jealous when I’m with Theo. He’s the type of guy that leaves you no question that you’re the only woman he’s thinking about. That doesn’t make his desperate pacing any less annoying.

“Could you pretty please stop pacing?”

“I’m nervous.”

“About what? I love the flowers, the place is beautiful…”

“I’m going to be your teacher.”

“Can you relax? I’m not taking History next semester.”

He stops pacing and rolls up his sleeves to expose his incredibly sexy tattoos. I prance over to Theo and kiss his cheek, which never fails to turn my blond boy incredibly red.

“Syl, I’m serious. I don’t want you getting in trouble.”

“I won’t! We can be really subtle. No one will know.”

“Your friends obviously know.”

“You showed up to the recital with Crispin and Amina. It didn’t look suspicious at all.”

“Thomas knew.”

“Thomas will learn to mind his business.”

Theo bites his lip and shakes his head. “You could convince me of anything. Come here.”

I press up against him, waiting for Theo’s hands on my hips. Once he nestles his hands on my hips I throw my arms around his neck and stand up on my tiptoes as much as possible. Theo chuckles and presses his nose into my neck.

“You were gorgeous tonight. I love you so much.”

“Then don’t break us up,” I whisper. “I know you want to protect me, but I can protect myself.”

Theo shakes his head and then gives me a deep, slow kiss.