Cornered (erotic) (#7, 101 Nights)

Chapter One: Natalie

Three weeks later

I slide into the backseat of the Bentley sent to pick me up from the private jet terminal at JFK. I slept some on the flight home from Nijala, but it wasn’t enough, and I feel … drained. Emotionally, spiritually, physically. There isn’t a real word for this level of pure exhaustion.

The moment my head rests back against the seat, my phone vibrates. I know it’s Elijah, just like I know that every time I see his name on my screen, my heart leaps, twists and drops in a combination that leaves me close to tears.

But I look. I always do. I always answer. I always wish there was something more to say. I always hope … I don’t know. Nothing can fix us unless I went back in time and told the me of three months ago to walk away.

My best friend Alisha told me pretty much everything that went on while I was captured. It’s no wonder Elijah barely said more than a sentence a day to me in Nijala, though he visited me in the hospital then on bed rest at least twice a day. I was under doctors’ orders not to stress or strain myself, and for the most part, Elijah and I kind of just … studied each other. At least, that’s what I recall between naps, exhausting physical therapy and treatments to help my half-starved body return to life.

I ache to fix what happened, even knowing it’s impossible. I dragged the sister he’d been trying to protect into hell and forced him to become something he wasn’t ready for. I don’t know how he can forgive me – or even if I want him to. I’m too angry with him pulling me into a world like this that I don’t know if I can forgive him either. Maybe it’s better that he cuts the relationship off since I’m still too weak to stay awake all day let alone wrestle with my emotions.

I sneak a peek at the phone. It’s silly. The driver isn’t paying attention, and the only person judging me for the inability to let him go is me. Realizing this, I open my eyes and gaze at his text.

Hope the flight went well.

So simple. So filled with restrained emotion, with words we didn’t say to each other, with despair that tears through me the same way I suspect it’s doing to him.

I don’t know what to do, and it’s killing me. But how do I fix all that’s happened? How do I forget the weeks I spent imprisoned in a shipping container, convinced I was going to die? How do I forgive myself for putting Layla, who has been through enough torture in her life, through another horrific experience? I know without a doubt that her father and his henchmen wouldn’t have found her if I hadn’t ordered Alisha to dig up dirt on Elijah.

I led them straight to a sweet, vulnerable, disabled little girl, and then I couldn’t even protect her from them when they began to starve us both. Just thinking about watching her life start to fade away before me makes me want to weep. She survived and seemed cheerful when we reunited – but I’m shattered. She may not blame me, but I do.

My hand rests on my lower abdomen. How do I bring a life into the world when it’s filled with nothing but … misery? I want to think our daughter has a better shot at life being raised in the projects than she does in Elijah’s palace, the place where Layla was tortured as a child. 

How do I stop loving him long enough to move on?

I can’t think about it right now. It’s too much.

It was, thank you. I send him a quick note and focus on the nighttime cityscape as we drive into the city. I always loved the way New York glowed at night. It’s magical. The familiarity of my surroundings soothes the part of me that hadn’t been able to get used to being waited on hand and foot at the palace.