Page 141 of Devoured

My eyes slowly adjusted to the light. I sat down on the edge of the bed and pushed a strand of red hair out of her face. I don’t think I’d ever seen her look so beautiful. She looked ethereal in the moonlight peeking through the windows. And I felt it again. That she was healing me. Even touching her warm skin made it feel like the darkness was being chased out of me.

“I love you,” I whispered as I traced her freckles with my thumb.

My lawyer didn’t believe in us. But Dr. Clark did. Ian did. Ellen did.

And most importantly…I did.

Penny and I were a team. And we were going to get through this together. If I had to quit my job, she wouldn’t let me slip. Maybe we’d move to New York. Maybe we’d stay here. All that mattered was that we were together. And that we decided our future together.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

She moaned in her sleep and I smiled.

“Penny,” I whispered.

She moaned again and moved her head about, but she didn’t open her eyes.

I wondered what she was dreaming about.

She moaned again and I smiled. I had a feeling she might be dreaming about me. I couldn’t even count the times that she’d made appearances in my dreams. Ever since the first time she fell into my arms.

“Penny,” I whispered again. I was just about to nudge her awake when my phone buzzed. My hand fell from her shoulder. I grabbed my phone and stared down at a text from Ian.

“James, can you head back to your office for a minute so I can call you? Something’s come up.”

I frowned. I stared back at Penny still sleeping peacefully. Whatever Ian needed, it could wait. Penny and I wanted to come clean to the dean in the morning. We needed to discuss this. I texted Ian back, telling him I’d call him in the morning.

But he immediately texted back: “It can’t wait until morning.”

I frowned and stood up. Ian wouldn’t keep texting me if it wasn’t important. I glanced once more at Penny peacefully sleeping in my bed and walked back out into the hall.

I hit Ian’s name on my phone as I walked into my office.

“James,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

“What’s going on?”

“I already tried everything I could.” There was a long pause. “It’s bad.”

My heart started racing. “Just tell me.”

“It’s Isabella.”

For fuck’s sake. Would this woman ever just let me be?

“She’s…she’s done something. And you’re not going to like it.”

I shook my head. “What could she have possibly done? The papers are signed. It’s done. It’s over,” I added, as if that would make it true. But my stomach was already twisting into knots. All I could think about was Penny sleeping back in my bed. I just wanted to ignore whatever Isabella had done, climb into bed, and pull Penny into my arms.

“Ah, fuck,” Ian said, delaying whatever horrible thing he was about to tell me. But then I heard him typing. And I realized that maybe something else had just come up. Like a string of bad events. Each one worse than the last.

For some reason my eyes landed on the invitation on my desk. It was the key to my fresh start with my friends. Hopefully a clean slate. But neither Matt nor Mason had signed it. And honestly, it didn’t look like something they’d send. They wouldn’t have sent anything at all. They would have just texted me or something.

I couldn’t stop staring at the strange invitation. And then it hit me. I knew why the address sounded familiar. Mason had asked me and Matt and Rob to go there once to check out some real estate he was interested in. But Isabella showed up too and we’d all gotten into a huge fight.

So either Mason had finally bought that real estate and the invitation was to the grand opening of his sex club or something… Or Isabella sent that invitation as part of some crazy scheme to destroy my life. And I was scared that my friends might be collateral damage.

She was off her meds. And I knew what that meant. Rob, Matt, Mason, and I all knew what that meant. But I hadn’t warned them. If something happened, it would be my fault.

I’d finally felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders earlier today. Like I was free. But now it was back. Isabella preferred for me to stay in hell.

Penny was safe, fast asleep in my bed. That itself was a relief. But I had no idea where the fuck my friends were. And I had no idea what new game Isabella was trying to play with my life. All I knew was that when I saw her earlier, I recognized that hollow look in her eyes. And the last time I’d seen it, someone had wound up dead.

I took a deep breath. “Tell me what Isabella has done.”

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