Page 61 of Craving Sin

I go toward the back door, but it’s locked. The pillows on my couch look the way they always do, sitting in the same position I always have them in, everything just how I left it, only it feels as though someone has been here—looking around, touching things, moving them.

“Rian?” I say before making my way toward the stairs. I’m halfway up them when one of the steps creaks, and I still.

What if Conan is here? What if he’s here waiting for me, ready to kill me because Rian didn’t?

He said I would be safe. The note in my pocket is proof of that, but maybe he can’t trust Conan. What if he goes behind Rian’s back or sends someone else?

But also…maybe it’s him…?

“Rian?” I say again, then continue upstairs.

I search every room.

Each floor.

My drawers are slightly out of place, small things have been moved around—things most people don’t notice, but I do—and somehow, believing it was Rian, that he came here before he went anywhere else, brings me comfort.

I take a shower, then get dressed in my own clothes for the first time since Rian took me. Less than two weeks, and my life won’t ever be the same.

I can’t stand being in the house anymore, so I call another car service and head to the hospital.

People stop and say hi when they see me, but most don’t realize I was gone. None of them has any clue that there is anything different about me…and there is. I’m not the same man I’d been, and I don’t think I ever will be.

And when I go to talk to the other surgeons at the clinic, telling them I need extended time off for personal reasons, they’re all surprised, but to them, I’m just a colleague—a man they work with and don’t need in their lives outside of that.

When I get back home, my neighbor, Dominique, is working in her garden. She gives me a wide smile and a wave. “How’s it going, Dr. Abbott? Your car break down?”

I chuckle. “I got rid of it before I went out of town,” I say. “I’m getting a new one.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were gone. I hope you went somewhere fun.”

A sharp pang lands in my chest. It has no business being there. It’s not as if Dominique and I are close. Why should she have noticed I was gone? But it’s just a reminder that I don’t have anyone in my life that cares about me really, and that even though my time with Rian changed everything…nothing changed at the same time, and I’m still utterly alone.

*

I’m home less than twenty-four hours when my home phone rings. I’ve been meaning to have it turned off for years, but haven’t taken the time to do it. Still, it rings so infrequently that the sound almost startles me.

“Hello?” I answer, heart racing in a way it shouldn’t due to a phone call. If it was Rian, he would use the burner that I haven’t let out of my sight.

“Preston, it’s your father. I just…called to see how you are.”

I frown. He called to see how I am? This is the man who couldn’t even be bothered to message me himself on my birthday. I had to call him. He had no idea I was even gone. How long would it have taken for someone to realize I was missing? And would that person have been my dad? Probably not.

“I’m fine.”

“I heard you took a leave of absence from work. Is there something I need to know about?”

His question lights fire to my already short fuse where he is concerned. “Why the fuck would you need to know anything about me? You don’t give a shit about me! You have no business asking about anything in my life.” You didn’t even realize I was gone. She would have known, and she would have cared.

“Whether you like it or not, I’m your father.”

“Prove it,” I say. “You have never once cared about being a father to me, and I have no idea why you’re pretending to care now.”

Without another word, I hang up. I have no idea what that was about, why he’s suddenly calling me the day after I get home. All I know is, I want nothing to do with him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Rian