Secrets and Scars: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (Fatal Hearts Series Book 3) (6 page)

“You mean Miles is fighting against Alvin?”

“I think he’s trapped inside. But Alvin is dominant.”

Owen groaned. “This multiple personality disorder thing is fucked up. I can’t wrap my mind around it.”

“I know. It took me a while to get used to two people inside one body. I’m angry with Alvin, but I’m also terrified that Miles could end up paying for everything Alvin is doing.”

“Alvin belongs in a mental institution. He needs help.” Owen’s voice rose above a whisper. “How did I not see this coming? Miles seemed so normal. He ran the company flawlessly. How could this happen?”

“I don't know.” I inhaled. “And you’re right, he does need help. But I don’t think Alvin will allow himself to get locked up.”

“You could be right. He’s too far gone.” Owen touched my hand again. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“How do you feel about him now? Do you still love Miles?”

A hard question to answer. “The part of me that used to love him is crushed and unrecognizable even to me. All I feel for him now is pity.”

Chapter Thirteen

By the time dawn made an entrance, I was awake and lying quietly with my eyes on the opening of the cave that had saved us.

Owen was still asleep, and I didn’t feel the need to wake him yet.

We were still well hidden, and I wanted to enjoy a moment to myself, before everything got crazy again. Fresh, untainted morning air wafted inside. I inhaled deeply, banishing the musty cave from my lungs, drawing in the scents of the ocean, flowers, and freedom.

Freedom. We had not escaped yet, but I was free for now. In fact, I had been free for a couple of hours. That was something to be grateful for. The dungeon was far away. If there was something I had learned from all of this, it was to grasp each moment and take what I could from it, to find the little joys and hold them with both hands before they slipped away. To live in the moment, however fragile it was. This was my fragile moment, my sliver of peace. I held it firmly inside my heart, before it crumbled and blew away in the winds of fate.

The whole night I had expected Alvin to burst into the cave and find me asleep next to Owen. To drive us apart with a bullet—or several—in each of our heads.

Owen stirred and turned to his side, facing me. He reached for his glasses, which lay on the sack, and put them on.

“How did you sleep?”

“Good,” I said. “How’s your ankle?” I sat up. My body still hurt, but the intense itching on my back signified that the cuts there were healing. The aches would stay with me for a while, but strength was more important than pain.

Owen sat and moved his foot a bit. A small smile made his mouth twitch. “I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

“Better safe than sorry.” I studied his face. “Are you sure you can walk again? I don’t mind waiting a couple more hours for you to feel completely fine.”

He reached for the last packet of beef jerky and handed me some. “Chloe, I’m fine. Anyway, I have to be. We can’t hide out here forever. He will
show up eventually.” Chewing, he eyed his foot. “I’ll just bind it up and it will be ready to go.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so.”

“You are aware that we don’t have any elastic bandages, right?” I rummaged inside the bag, hoping to find something of use. Nothing but empty packets of food and water bottles.

Owen lifted his arms above him and removed his t-shirt. He tore it into two strips, giving me a satisfied look. “When you don't have a bandage, you make a bandage.”

“Oh.” I almost choked on my food. A strange sensation crawled up and down my spine as my gaze swept over his muscular body, the slabs of stone that were his stomach, the compass tattoo on the right bicep. How ironic.

My pulse skittered as I watched him roll up the pieces of cloth, then wrap them around the arch of his foot. When he reached the ankle bone, he tied the cloth firmly around it, holding it in place.

Blood surged from my fingertips to my toes. I couldn’t deny that we’d been getting closer, and my feelings for Owen had changed. Like Miles, he had transformed into a completely different person in front of my eyes. It was as though I were meeting him for the first time.

His caring side blew me away, just as Miles’s dark side had. Just as Owen’s body was doing now.

Stop it, Chloe. Look away. You cannot think about him like that. Your life is complicated enough.

I pulled myself together, holding my hands tight to prevent them from reaching out to touch him, to see if his muscles were as hard as they looked. “Is it doing the job… the t-shirt?”

He looked at me, his blue eyes bright in the soft morning light. “Better than I even expected.”

For a moment I stared at him, chewing my bottom lip. I had to ask—needed to know. “Owen, I need to ask you something.”

“Sure, what is it?” Unaware of the confusion raging in my body, he pushed his feet into his shoes.

“We were not all that close in Boca Raton. Why would you do this for me? Why are you really here?”

I had my suspicions, but I wanted him to tell me the truth. Perhaps he was just being a good person, preventing a murder he knew was going to happen.

In the silence that fell between us, I didn’t hear anything else. The crickets stopped chirping, the birds sang their last notes and went quiet, and the wind died in the trees.

“Can you handle the truth?”

“I’ve been hearing a lot of truths lately. What’s one more?”

He placed a hand on my thigh, and goosebumps scattered across my leg. I stopped breathing.

His fingers traced a circle on my skin. Even though my pants separated my skin from his, I felt the warmth of every touch. “I’m here because I love you, Chloe.”

I didn’t say anything as the words repeated inside my head like a broken record. Round and round and round it turned.

He loved me?

“I know this must come as a shock.” He moved his hand to the back of my neck, walking his fingers up to the base of my skull and burying them in my hair. He kept them there, warm, comforting against my scalp. The cold shock of the truth melted away with his touch. “I’ve loved you from the moment my eyes first met yours.”

“How? Why?” How could I not have known? Was I that blind? I thought he hated me.

“Those are questions I can't answer,” he said. “The only thing I know is, my best friend introduced me to his girlfriend, and something inside my heart cracked. The moment I saw you, I knew you were the one—the only one I wanted. The only one I couldn’t have.”

My mind traveled back to the times we’d been in the same room, searched for a sign in his eyes. “I thought you didn’t even like me.” I rubbed my eyes. “Except… except for that time you tried to hit on me, of course.”

“That was one of my weak moments. I’d had a little too much to drink.” His laugh was a deep rumble in his throat. “Look, pretending not to like you was an act.” His fingers moved again, tracing shapes on my scalp now. I longed to lean into him, to take everything he was giving. But confusion stopped me in my tracks.

“The only way I could deny my feelings for you was to find a way not to like you, a reason to push you away. For the longest time, I tried to fool my heart. In the end, my heart fooled me. It refused to let you go.”

“Is that why you acted all strange right after we met? Why you messed up at Torp Inc.?”

“Now you know. Before you came into my life—Miles’s life—I had everything under control. I thought I had the kind of life I wanted: the money, the women. A perfect life for a bachelor. When I met you, I realized none of it had value, unless I shared it with you. My life was dark and worthless unless you were in it, really in it. Unless you were mine. And not just in my dreams.”

My heart ached. It had to have been torturous for him to love someone and not have those feelings reciprocated. Even worse, he’d promised to stand by as best man and watch someone else marry the woman he loved. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“How could I? Miles was my best friend.”

“You did try to chase me away from him, though. You never missed the opportunity to tell me you didn’t approve of our relationship.”

“I tried but failed. I thought it was over. That’s why I came to make peace with you that day. After the wedding I was going to move to France for a couple of months, or years. Being around you, seeing you happy with someone else, hurt too bad.”

Tears burned in my eyes. Words like those weren’t meant to hurt. They were meant to soothe. Now that I understood Owen, knew where he was coming from, my heart went out to him, broke for him. His actions were products of a broken heart. Weeks ago it would have been so easy to respond, so easy to let him down, to call him a jerk and move on. But now, my voice deceived me.

He stroked my hair. “When I discovered you were in danger, when I found the notebook in Miles's office, I had to do something. I needed to save you. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

I placed a hand on his cheek. “You don’t need to be. You came, Owen. You’re here. You saved me. Whatever happens, I’ll always be grateful to you.”

“There’s one way you can thank me. One simple way.” Before I had a chance to decipher his words, his lips were on mine. Something inside my head exploded. The charge from my head to my toes was hot—too hot, electrifying. But I came to my senses quickly and pulled away. I had to.

“You can’t do that.” I bit my lip, tasting his kiss and the salt of my tears.

“I understand.” He pointed at my lips. “That’s enough. I’ll take that one kiss for now. Maybe one day there will be more… if we survive this. A man can hope.”

My heart squeezed. “You don’t understand, Owen. What I feel for you doesn’t matter. I can’t kiss you, I can’t...”

“You don't have to be loyal to him. Not after everything he’s done. He’s a monster.”

“Miles isn’t a monster; Alvin is.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But there's something else.”

“More than what you told me last night?”

I covered my face with my hands, hiding from his intense gaze. I had to say it before words failed me. “Alvin might be HIV-positive.” I took a shuddering breath. “He could have passed it on to me. That’s why I’m scared to kiss you.” I dropped my hands into my lap. Laughter shot up my chest, spilling out just as fresh tears filled my eyes. “I might actually be HIV-positive too.”

“What?” Owen shot to his feet, almost slamming his head into a stalactite. His hands moved to his face in slow motion as he turned his back to me. He was giving me a taste of the stigma that surely awaited me in the real world.

I dropped my head, feeling dirty. “I didn’t want to tell you. But you have feelings for me.” A tear rolled down my cheek. “I should have told you before you kissed me.”

He didn’t speak. His shoulders quaked as he stumbled toward one wall of the cave, almost collapsing into it as he rested his palms against the dirt, head dipped low.

I shivered, my body suddenly cold despite the breeze’s promise of another hot day.

I stood and walked toward him. I hesitated before placing a hand on his back. “Owen, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

He whirled around, eyes dazzling with liquid fury. “This is not about the kiss. I kissed you, not you me.” He took me by the shoulders and gazed down into my eyes. His hands went slack and his body seemed to fold as he sank, his knees hitting the dirty ground at my feet. He leaned his head against my legs.

He raised it again before I could rest my hands on it. “This is not on you, baby.” The furious sparkle in his eyes twisted my gut. “Don’t you dare apologize. You’re not at fault here. It’s fuckin’ Miles.” His hands wrapped around my calves, and his fury sank into my skin. “The bastard knowingly infected you.” He stood up again, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead. “I’ll make sure he pays for this.” He returned to me, pulled me almost roughly into his arms. “I’m sorry.”

I let him hold me. His heart pounded against my chest. I didn’t cry.

The emptiness intensified when he pulled back. He placed both hands on my cheeks. The size of his hands made it possible for him to cocoon my head. “We’ll figure this out.” The cracks in his voice deepened. “One way or another, you and I
will
figure this out. We both know HIV is not the death sentence it once was. Don’t ask me again to turn my back on you. Especially not now.”

Chapter Fourteen

Opening up to Owen about the HIV was both good and bad. He needed to know, considering his feelings for me.

On the other hand, now that everything was out in the open, reality had pushed itself to the front of my mind. I could no longer shake it. It was real.

No matter how one looked at it, my life would change. Wherever I went in the world—even if I moved to beautiful Tuscany—this truth about me would follow.

I could get on medication, manage the virus, but ultimately, being HIV-positive would always remind me of Alvin. He had given me something of himself—left a mark that would stay with me, even if he wasn’t physically present. They could throw him in prison, or put him in a mental institution, but he’d never really be gone from my life. We were connected.

After we left the cave, Owen didn’t bring it up again. He treated me the same way he had before I told him. In fact, my revelation seemed to draw us even closer.

Owen dropped the stick that had served as his support. “Almost at the top.” His breath came in quick gasps. “Shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes to get up there. We’ll be able to know the exact position of the village.”

“Finally.” The top of the mountain would be a milestone, a step closer to safety.

“Do you want to drink… finish the bottle?”

“No, I’m fine. Let’s save it for later. Anything could happen between here and the village.” I had long stopped being naïve. Just because we were close didn’t mean we would reach it. I remembered when Alvin forced us to change our route, making us travel the long way instead of getting to the yacht in no time. Distance meant nothing in our current circumstances.

Nothing was ever as it seemed.