It Pains Me (Betrayal, #5)

by Penelope Sky

You deserve a man who will bend at the knee and worship you. Who doesn’t look at another woman, even when you aren’t in the room. Who says good things behind your back and talks shit to your face.

“I do forgive you, Theo. But I can’t change everything that’s brought us to our current circumstances. An apology has the power to earn forgiveness, but it doesn’t have the power to change the past.”

I’d shown my father grace by accepting his decision without resentment, but now, I felt differently. If I’d had a family of my own, a father in my life, perhaps I wouldn’t have needed to search for love elsewhere. I wouldn’t have been desperate, so I would have taken my time, not been impressed by Bolton’s handsomeness and his security. Most people had help from their parents all throughout their lives, something to fall back on when they hit hard times, but I never had that. I’d been on my own far too young.

Women talked to their mothers. They talked to their aunts. They went to their fathers when they needed help. I literally had no one. I didn’t have friends who would understand. I didn’t have anyone who loved me enough to care the way my mother would.

Our fairy tale had slowly descended into madness. Bolton was a handsome prince who had erased all my problems with his love, but his skin had melted away and revealed the true fiend underneath. A monster that lived in a cave by the sea. That ate the bones of the women who scorned his love.

I was staring out the window as I sat at the dining table, drinking a glass of wine and reading a book. Books were all I had now. The only escape from this miserable existence. I only had one other option to leave this circumstance, but I hadn’t mustered up the courage to do it.