AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Peyton
Raf, I don’t even know where to start this. I don’t know what you’ve been told but just know that everything I said to you was the truth.
I blinked, reading the second sentence over and over again.Everything I said to you was the truth.
Listening to my gut was harder than I realized because right now it wasn’t telling me anything. Or maybe it was and I was too busy feeling too many emotions to even register it.
Peyton
You were there for me when no one else was. You made me feel safe again. You gave me a freedom I didn’t know I deserved. I know things are different now and that I’ll never be able to see you again, but I need to tell you the truth.
Never be able to see you again.Why did those words feel like someone had just sentenced me to death in an electric chair?
Peyton
When I think about you, I smile. When I remember the way you held me, I feel at peace. When I think about the way you would look at me, I know that all of those feelings swirling around that I tried to deny were real. I love you, Raf. I love you with my whole heart and soul. We just weren’t meant to be. It wasn’t in the cards for us. But that doesn’t make it not true. If there’s one thing you’ll remember about me, please remember that I loved you.
I love you. I love you with my whole heart and soul.
Fuck. Fuck! I grasped my hair, pulling on it so hard that I was sure it was going to come out. There was no mistaking my gut now. I believed her. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. Which led to me knowing I had to find her. I couldn’t let her be with her ex—her husband. If everything she’d said was true, then he’d hurt her—he’d destroy her completely.
Dammit.
I needed to find her, fast. But I couldn’t just walk away, not with what I’d done out there. I had to answer to the boss first, but as soon as that was done tomorrow, I was out of here. If I had to cross enemy lines to find the woman I loved, then I’d do just that.
And with crystal clear clarity, I realized, I’d give up everything for her. I’d sacrifice everything I had. Because deep down, I knew she was telling the truth. I’d just let other people get in my head.
But not anymore. I’d get her back in my arms. And I’d spend the rest of my life making sure she was safe.
I’d sacrifice myself for her, always.
* * *
PEYTON
Silence was the one thing I could control. I may not have been able to dictate where I was going, or who I was staying with. But my voice? That was all me. So for forty eight hours, I hadn’t said a word to Travis. Not when I got into his car, not on the entire drive back to the house I’d escaped from, and not in the two days that had followed.
He’d been civil, acting like the nice guy as I walked around the house, remembering every place he’d hurt me, every place he’d thrown me to the ground, every wall he’d held me up against and strangled me. The entire place was full of memories that haunted me. But I didn’t let it show. I didn’t let him see how much being back here—especially without my babies—was affecting me.
The chores that had been expected of me the entire time we’d been together weren’t getting done. In fact, I was almost baiting him, wanting him to get his anger out because the more time that ticked by with him being nice, the more on edge I was.
He was a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any second.
But…what if he wasn’t? What if he’d changed? What if me taking the boys and running from him made him realize just how bad he was? How violent he’d become? Maybe he was just trying to get me home to show me that he wasn’t the same Travis that I’d left all those months ago but instead the Travis that I’d first fell in love with.
“Ace won’t like this,” I whispered as Travis placed his hand on the side of my face.
Travis shrugged, his lips lifting up into a grin. For months—years—we’d been skirting around the innocent touches and longing looks to each other from across the room. But that had changed the moment I told Ace someone asked me out on a date. I hadn’t realized Travis was in the same room, but I’d felt his anger as soon as I’d said it.
He wanted me. He had all along. I knew it. He knew it. We’d just never made that first move.
Until today.
“I don’t care, Peyton.” He pressed closer to me, pushing me against the wall and blocking me in. “I’ve loved you for more years than you’ll ever know. But I’m not gonna sit on the sidelines anymore. You’re mine. You have been from the moment Travis asked me to protect you a few years ago.”
I inhaled a stuttering breath, my hands shaking as I placed my palm on his chest and felt his beating heart. “I love you too.”
His grin widened. “I know you do.” He pressed closer, his lips centimeters from mine. “You’re mine now. Always mine. No matter what.”
