Char is a spy and assassin, trying to keep his corrupt life from seeping into Ophelia. Complications arise many times, such as kidnapping, murders, and unexpected plot twists. Char has to make the choice of turning Ophelia into a spy, or letting her go for good.
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Excerpt:
"My parents are dead."
Her head jerks back slightly, then she starts to play with the hem of her dress. The mental debate going on in her head is almost visible, as it would be with most people. Ask about it, even though it's personal? What should I say? What Ophelia says and does will be a determining factor in how I see her. How she handles things like this.
"How did they die?"
So her curiosity outweighed her empathy. I'd say the same about myself. "I'm not supposed to tell." But I wouldn't mind anymore, it doesn't matter. Most topics have become desensitized to me, nothing is off limits now. Once pain becomes your constant, it doesn't hurt anymore.
"You can tell me, don't build barriers. You can tell me anything, if you want to."
Her eyes are so focused and intense that my flesh crawls. If you knew, you'd never talk to me ever again, because all this spy secrecy would unravel. I'm sure it sucks to have your parents gone all the time, but at least they aren't gone forever like mine. You don't know how it feels, they raised me to be a cold heartless person, and they'll never be forgiven for it.
But at the same time, longing pulls at me. To feel my mom's hands massage my scalp, my head in her lap, and know those hands are stained with blood to protect me. To cook dinner with my dad and watch him saw meat with a butcher knife, and know that he cuts flesh with other knives. They were fucked up in the worst ways, but they were never against me. Though they had their flaws, it was always for me.
Dead people are hard to hold grudges against.
How I wish to be an average kid again, not knowing his purpose.
When I met Charly, she was a bomb. Our years together in law school were intense and profound as two loner souls nosediving into a troublesome romance. We did things together I wouldn't dare tell anyone, our physical attraction was unstoppable from the start. But Charly instigated the darkest side of me until our demons were unleashed. It was the time of my life, and nothing has come close since.
Now a decade later, I need to work through what happened, just as Charly decides to reappear, derailing my life once again. The exact moment I began to give my relationship with Emily a real try, and after years of knowing nothing about Charly but deceitful lies, she just shows up, only this time her lies have gone too far: what she has hidden from me will disrupt everything.
Charly was the rich and sexy, freaky girl who could have anything she desired and she craved me, just a poor boy lucky enough to have been granted an athlete's scholarship. Our love was real, and so was our pain, we were both trying to evade ourselves. These are the recollections of how we became addicted to each other and other agents that nearly destroyed us. In our sexual awakening, we went to extremes most people would call insanity and yet in that chaos, I loved her more than anything and anyone and I know she loved me the same. She helped me believe in myself, something no one ever did before and my success today is all thanks to her, I know. But now that she comes clean about everything, will I be able to live with it? Will I be able to let go of this anger I carry with me since birth? But more importantly, has she come to stay?
Yanina brings the first ardent romance from the series "The Zodiac in Love" centered around the relationship between pleasure and trauma, about the search for ecstasy that comes so near agony. In order to heal the relationship and themselves they must first come to rock bottom but how deep can they go before they realize it must just be bottomless?