Across Your World (BOOK II) COMPLETE ✔️

I pulled away from him, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. "Why are you doing this to me?" I choked out, my voice breaking against my own ribs. "Why won't you just leave me alone?"

"Leave you alone?" His voice was soft, almost amused, but every syllable hit me like ice against bone. "I'm nowhere, Liza. I'm not in this room. I'm not in your world. I'm buried in your thoughts. Woven so tightly into your mind that you taste me every time you breathe." He tilted his head as he approached, eyes glinting. "Pathetic, isn't it? The way you cling to the memory of me. Look at you." His gaze dragged down my trembling hands, my crumpled posture. "So weak. So utterly miserable."

"I hate you." My nails biting into my palms as I fought the tremor in my voice.

"Hate me?" Adrian's mouth curved, but there was no real smile there-just something dark. "No, Liza. You don't. You can't." He came even closer, close enough that I could feel the phantom warmth of the man he used to be. "I broke you. I betrayed you. I shattered everything you trusted." He leaned in, lowering his voice to a whisper that scraped along my spine. "And yet here you are... still reaching for me." His eyes locked on mine-merciless, "Not for the nightmare I've become. Not for the ghost that haunts you. No. You still ache for the real me. The me you loved. The me you're still begging to come back."