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Chapter Thirty-Two
Claire
My feet slapped against the pavement as I ran toward my car. The wave of hurt I’d deliberately sent toward Jack had stalled him long enough to allow me to get out of the office. Away from him. Away from all the hurt and disappointment.
I knew that as I rushed through the station, the other officers were watching me, speculating about what was going on between me and Jack. Not that I cared. As far as they knew, I was just one more woman that Jack had scorned.
Behind me, I could hear Jack calling out my name.
“Claire!”
Stunned by my anger or not, Jack’s legs were longer than mine and he was faster. He stood before the car door before I could reach the handle.
“Get out of my way, Jack,” I growled.
I looked up at him. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say he looked devastated. Too bad I knew better.
The cool air brushed against my cheeks, making me realize that, at some point, I’d started crying. Reaching up, I brushed my fingers beneath my eyes, wiping away the tears.
Jack reached out, his thumb nearly making contact with my cheek before I pulled away.
“Don’t touch me,” I spat.
“Claire, please just listen.”
“I don’t want to listen, Jack.” Even the sound of my voice irritated me. “I just want you to get the fuck out of my way.”
Jack ran a hand across his face before settling his eyes on me.
“Claire, if the bond isn’t real, you’ll eventually be so unhappy with me that you’d rather die than spend another moment in my presence,” he said. “I don’t want that. I never want you to look at me and feel nothing but misery.”
I laughed, the sound harsh.
“That’s what you want, Jack,” I said. “But what about what I want? Did that factor into your hypothesizing? I hear you say that you want me to be happy. That you don’t want to look into my face and see misery. Have you thought about what I want? Of course not. Because you’re too damned busy trying to find a way out of this. A way to get away from the witch you never wanted and never intended to keep.”
“That’s not fucking true, Claire. If I didn’t care about what you wanted, I sure as hell wouldn’t have done my best to find out what it was they’d injected into you. To find out the truth, even if the truth fucking killed me. I needed to know that the bond was real.”
“You needed to know if the bond was real?” My fingers dug into the denim of my jeans. My heart was pounding so hard, I wondered if I was using up centuries of life force in this one moment. “You had to have a fucking test to realize that our bond wasn’t real? Because I seem to remember you feeling pretty OK with our bond when you were inside me.”
I reveled in his response. No matter what that paper on his desk had said, his nostrils flared and his pupils grew large. He wanted my body. He just didn’t want the rest of me.
“So that’s it then, is it?” I asked.
“That’s what?” Right now, he looked older. Older than I’d ever seen him look before.
“I’m fine to fuck. I’m fine to knot,” I began, punctuating the last sentence with a bitter laugh. “But that’s all that Jack Beaumont finds me to be good for. A good fuck and a rut.”
“Claire.” His voice was a growl. A warning.
Tears were streaming down my face. My hands were shaking. I had to get far away from him.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”
He wanted to make me stay. He wanted to debate the logic of getting into a car and driving away in my current state. Something about the way I looked at him must have made him think better of it.
He stepped aside, allowing me to reach for the door handle. He nearly reached out to stop me and then took a step back. Just as he used to do with me. Now that I knew what it felt like to be close to him, the gesture hurt more than it had before.
Jumping into the car, I slammed the driver-side door shut behind me and turned the ignition over. I locked the doors as if I were afraid that Jack might try to jump into the car with me. I nearly laughed at the idea. Likely, once this little drama was over, he would be glad that I’d left.
