Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 212

Chapter 212

She took a step closer. Then another, She stopped at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes fixed on the floor.

“I am sorry,” she said. “Grandma said this is for the best.”

“Get. Out.”

She looked up at me and there were tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to do this, Dominic. But your grandmother said if I do not go through with it, she would send me back to my family. I can’t let that happen, Dominic. I love you so much.”

I pushed myself to my feet. The world tilted violently and I grabbed the bedpost to keep from falling. I stood there, swaying, my breath ragged, and I pointed at the door with my free hand.

“I do not care what my grandmother told you. Leave this room. Now.”

She took a step back. Then another. She turned and walked to the door, her shoulders hunched, her head bowed. She paused at

the threshold and looked back at me.

“I am sorry,” she whispered again.

Then she was gone.

I let out a breath I did not realize I had been holding and sagged against the bedpost. My heart was racing, the heat in my body building into something unbearable.

I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold it. I sat back on the bed and tried to unlock the screen but my thumb kept missing the sensor. I tried again. And again. My vision was blurry, the icons swimming in front of my eyes. I could not see clearly. I could not focus.

And then my phone started ringing.

I almost dropped it. I fumbled, caught it, pressed it against my ear without checking the screen. I did not know who it was. I did

not care.

“Hello?”

And then I heard her voice.

“Dominic?”

Celeste. The sound of my name in her voice hit me like a wave of cold water, sharp and clear, cutting through the fog in my head.

“Help me,” I said.

Her face shifted. The lines softened, the features rearranged themselves, and suddenly she did not look like Imelda anymore. She looked like Celeste. The same eyes. The same lips. The same curve of her jaw, the same fall of her hair. The drug was warping my perception, showing me what I wanted to see instead of what was really there.

But I knew better. I had to know better.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her knees together, her hands in her lap. She looked up at me with those eyes that were not Celeste’s eyes no matter how much the drug tried to convince me otherwise.

“I have never done this before,” she said. “So cut me some slack.”

“Celeste,” I murmured.

The word slipped out before I could stop it. The drug pulled at my mind, dragging me under, and the woman in front of me smiled. It was Celeste’s smile. It was not Celeste’s smile. I could not tell anymore.

She reached out and framed my face with her hands.

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