The Carrero Contract - Finding Freedom (Book 3 of Contract Trilogy)

8

I finally managed a little sleep after obsessing crazily and turning my head inside out for a few hours. Torn about the choice in front of me I never imagined I would ever have.

Alexi loves me.
Alexi is offering me something real.

I think the world has ended and hell has frozen over because I cannot seem to digest this at all.

I never in a million years would have imagined him of all people, offering me something that only a few months ago I had longed for from him. I had been mush at his feet and would have done anything for a chance at claiming his heart, and now here I stand with exactly that, and it's like it's not even real. Detached from any sense of reality and floating like a numb blob of confusion in my head.

My initial reaction to his confession of love was anger because of everything that has gone on between us before, and now ... I don't know anymore. The levels of mistrust and the huge wall of trepidation that this man has done so much damage so effortlessly to me is holding me back. My heart is divided.

I still love him, but I don't know if I want to be loved by him. Walking that path may just be a repeat of the past and a whole lot of misery and pain for me, or it might not be. The Alexi of the past few weeks, the past few hours, is a complete change to the one who inflicted so much cruelty before. I don't know what's real and what is a manipulation to manoeuvre me into his arms.

He really seems like he is trying to reform his ways for me and gain trust, or it could be a world class act fuelled by the information, he has on me now, for his own evil ends.

I don't know if he truly is trying to get me to forgive him.

Can I? I just don't know. The heart is a funny thing and when you burn it so deeply that it gives up on living it's very hard to convince it to beat again.

I never thought it would the first time, and how does that old saying go—once bitten, twice shy. I think in my case it's not just shy but recoiling into the depths of solitude so no one can ever find it again. I'm terrified of feeling that profound agony at his hands and will do anything to avoid letting anyone hurt me so cruelly again.

I need a break from my own thoughts because I'm driving myself insane and churning my emotions into a messy ball of yuck. There is no other word for the chaotic tangle I find myself in and I need to stop turning this over in my mind. I just need a normal day, with mundane tasks downstairs and no thoughts beyond that. That would be heaven for a little while.

I get up, shower and eat breakfast, or lunch should I say as it's afternoon when I surface, all alone. Alexi is nowhere in sight, but the evidence of his being here is. The coffee mug on the drainer and the coffee scent in the air from the machine, which is now sparkling clean and empty. The cleaner has obviously been up here as it's all neat and perfect and hides all evidence of a restless and possibly life-altering night.

It's as though nothing has happened, and my world isn't completely jumbled up into an unsure future. No sign of emotional fall out and devastating tears from confessions.

So much rests on whatever decision I make. Life will never be the same no matter which path I choose to follow.

With him, I may either be blissfully content for the rest of my days or end up with a second attempt at a bullet to the head. Without him, I may still have a future in this club although I don't really see how as he would never stay away indefinitely, it's not him to do so, or I might end up back on the streets and the worst kind of existence. Everything is so unsure.

The laundry basket, no doubt, contains my underwear I so carelessly discarded, and my shoes and bag are sat neatly on the coffee table for me. My bracelet sits shining like a pretty little beacon and I hesitate before picking it up. I threw it here so callously, to sever all ties to him, and now it holds more meaning than before. The thought behind the buying it.