Alle Kapitel von They Know What She Wants: Kapitel 451 – Kapitel 460

It did not take long to realize he had actually fallen asleep because his breathing grew heavy against my collarbone. I sat there listening to it when a stupid curiosity crossed my mind. Before I knew it, I raised my hand—slowly enough that I could have stopped if I had any sense left—and touched his hair. It was… soft. Softer than I expected, finer than a man that hard had any right to have, and the ridiculous softness of it made my throat tight because this was James, the same bastard who had tied me to a chair and chased me through the woods, and here I was sinking my hand into his hair. It was a miracle that didn’t wake him. There wasn’t even a twitch. Just goes to show how fucking exhausted he was that my fingers in his hair meant nothing next to the need to sleep, and a smile found its way onto my lips before I could stop it. Then I noticed a crawl at the back of my neck. I raised my gaze toward the house and found Celeste standing in front of it, framed by the doorwa

There was a sound on the other end that wasn’t quite a sob but wasn’t far off it either, shaky and wet, like she’d been crying before she even fucking called and just hadn’t let it all the way out yet. “Okay,” she mumbled, and then again, softer, like she was trying to convince her own body of it. “Okay.”“He’s still unconscious,” I said gently, because I didn’t want her building something in her head that wasn’t there yet. “But stable’s stable. That’s the part that matters right now.”“I know. I know, I just—” She cut herself off, and I heard her breathe in hard through her nose. “I’ve been so worried.”“I know.”“Nobody was telling me anything and every time I called Mr. James it went to voicemail, and I just—” Her voice wobbled again, and this time she let it, a small shaky laugh coming out somewhere under the tears. “God, sorry, I’m being so embarrassing right now.”“You’re not.”“I’m ugly crying into my phone.”“I can’t see you,” I said. “So as far as I’m concerned you’re doing t

I don't know how long I stayed like that, curled up and my face swollen against the pillow, but at some point the crying just... stopped. My body probably ran out of whatever it needed to keep that going. So I lay there staring at the wall, empty in a way that almost scared me more than the crying had. After a while, I heard footsteps outside, then a gentle, almost apologetic knock came. "Sara?" Riley's voice, muffled through the door. "It's me." I didn't answer right away. Not that I had anything against her. I just wasn't sure I trusted my voice yet, wasn't sure if it would come out steady or if it would crack the second I opened my mouth. Didn’t want to take the gamble. "I'm coming in, okay?" The door creaked open, and I heard her pause in the doorway, probably taking in the state of me, still in my shoes. "Have you been crying?" I forced my mouth into something that would resemble a smile, even though I could feel how wrong it must have looked, all wobbly at the edges

I stepped out of the car, and James came around to walk me inside without a word. The inside of the house was even more overwhelming than the outside, but I barely registered any of it, the high ceilings, the quiet hum of some kind of central air, the men stationed at intervals down the hall who nodded at James as we passed. None of it mattered. My whole body was narrowed down to one single thought, one single destination, and everything else blurred past like background noise. We reached an elevator, and James pressed a button without needing to ask which floor, which told me everything about how many times he'd made this exact trip already. The ride up felt like it stretched forever and when the doors finally opened onto a hallway, James led me down it, our footsteps echoing off the floor, until he slowed in front of a door near the end. That's when I heard his voice. Just the murmur of it at first, muffled through the wood, but it was enough to make my chest seize up comp

Yes. It did. It felt like everybody was hiding something from me. And the worst part? He was acting like that piece of information wasn't even a serious deal. My lips trembled because there was a question sitting right at the back of my throat that I wasn't sure I actually wanted answered. But it came out anyway, small and shaking. "Am I just her replacement?" “Wouldn’t you need to share some resemblance with her for that to even apply?” That did nothing to comfort me. "Then are you planning on using me," I said, "to get back to them?" Silence. It stretched long enough that I felt my heart drop somewhere into my stomach, and I almost regretted asking at all. "Did they tell you that," he finally let out, and his voice had gone quiet in a way I didn't like, careful in a way that scared me more than if he'd just gotten angry outright. I didn't answer. But it seemed like I didn't have to because my silence answered for me. He let out a breath, something between a