You Belong to Me (Stevens Book 6)

Chapter 15

Alice was sitting in the dark at her large dinner table with a cup of tea. She hadn't even bothered to get undressed. She just sat with her cold tea, looking out of the window at the lights of the city wondering if Rainer even given her a second thought after he had left her. He sure hadn't given her a thought since he had arrived in New York.

Her thoughts bounced back to how heartbreakingly handsome he had looked in his tux. Her thoughts were confusing her, and head was throbbing, but she couldn't move. She was numb.

How could she still be friends with Grace and Cassie? It would take all of her will power not to ask about Rainer, not to let them know.

There was a knock at her door and it jerked her out of her trance. It was probably the neighbors at this time of night.  They had occasionally locked themselves out when they got too drunk so they had given her a key for emergency situations. She walked to the door and looked out the peephole to see a mass of familiar red hair.

Rainer

He knocked again.

Slowly, her hands trembling, she unlocked the door and opened it.

When he saw her his gaze raked over her from head to toe. The heat of it made her step back, and he took it as an invitation and entered, closing the door behind him.

"You, Alice, are not easy to discard," he rasped before he claimed her lips in a scorching kiss. She should be fighting him, she should be telling him to get out and leave her alone, but she couldn't. All she could do was feel his lips, his hands, as he buried them in her hair, and the hard length of his body as she fell against him.

He deepened the kiss, his hands moving to cup her bottom and lift her to him, and her arms had wound themselves around his neck, pulling him in deeper for the kiss, then her legs were gone because she couldn't feel them.

Just as quickly as he had started the kiss he ended it by wrenching his lips from hers and setting her away from him, and Alice had to lean against a chair for support as he started pacing.

"I did think of calling you when I got to New York.  I wanted to, but I knew that it would hurt more in the end, when it didn't work. We had made a clean break, I thought it was better to leave it as it was because I didn't expect to see you again. I knew you would move on and find a nice guy, someone who would be around."

Alice didn't say a word because she didn't know what to say.

"I have been down the road we would have gone down.  Only seeing each other every now and then, the worry the doubt that comes when we weren't together, it would end up tearing us apart. We would eventually hate each other."

"Like you hated Yvonne?" Alice said softly.

She had figured out, in a matter of moments, what he couldn't. Rainer looked at her stunned, sitting down hard at the table. His love for Yvonne, and if he was honest it had been love, had turned to hate.

"I don't want to hate you Alice."

"I don't want to hate you either." She moved to sit next to him.

"I'm so sorry that I hurt you." He grabbed her face with his hands, beseeching her with his eyes.

She nodded, forgiving him. That is what love was, forgiveness.

"I only said that you sought out my family because I was angry at myself, and I needed to push you away. I didn't really believe it.  You are the most honest person I know."

"I couldn't do that, I know what it feels like to be used. I couldn't do that to Grace or Cassie."

They were silent.