Page 45 of The Ache That Stayed

To make the monster hers.

To press her against something solid, fuck her senseless and remind her who I am when I stop pretending to be civilised.

I’d trained it to behave. That was control.

Marcello’s presence kept it caged. Forced it to behave. Forced me to behave. But he was gone now.

And the monster was making me forget the man I was.

The quiet between Roxanne and me wasn’t neutral anymore. It was charged. And every second near her reminded me how close she was, yet out of bounds.

She shook her head and locked her screen with more force than necessary.

God, she was beautiful when furious.

The same brown-haired golden boy from the club walked up like he belonged there, offering her coffee. She smiled when she took it.

Ouch!

I smiled despite myself. Roxanne always had teeth.

With Marcello she softened, but with me she sharpened, somehow letting her good girl image slip. A side that only I knew existed.

By noon I’d circle the manor grounds twice.

I walked into the study—their makeshift office on site.

“Eat, or else you’ll get cranky,” I said, putting the bag of takeout on the table.

“I’m not hungry,” she replied.

She pushed the bag away and spoke with one of the contractors like I was just another inconvenience. Just then, golden boy came and offered her a sandwich.

“Here. Amelia made your favourite.”

“Gee. Thanks. And thank Amelia for me.”

She took the sandwich from him, eyes flicking to me like she wanted me to see. I picked up the take-out bag and dropped it in the bin. Heat surged through my veins like an inferno, and I walked away before I did something worse. Like smashing his face to a pulp.

One minute she was telling me she wasn’t hungry and another she was taking food from the pretty boy like it meant nothing.

Was I being petty and irrational? Maybe. But it burned anyway. My ego cracked louder than my knuckles.

I’d checked on him—Callum Finnegan.

Decent man, no criminal records, lived with his girlfriend Amelia, who worked in fashion and a cat called Ginger. He posed no threat to her.

But I couldn’t say the same for my self-control and fragile ego.

She laughed at something he said and lightly touched his arm. Her laugh cut through me sharper than any blade.

A vicious feeling clawed its way up my spine. The way she leaned in when she laughed—throat exposed, pulse visible, unaware of how easy it would be for the world to extinguish a light that bright.

I clenched my jaw so tight I heard my teeth grind. I shouldn’t care. But watching her laugh with another man, I felt a jagged edge tear open under my ribs.

It wasn’t jealousy.

Jealousy was human. Manageable. This felt older than that. Meaner. The kind of instinct that made men like me bury bodies in forests and call it protection.