Annihilate Me (Vol. 3) (The Annihilate Me Series) by Christina Ross Read Free Book Online

and the car he was driving was stolen.   So that gives us nothing with the exception of the source
behind the texts you received and the emails I received.   The last time one of your men updated
me, which was yesterday afternoon, the police didn’t know if they were sent
from a TracFone or from some other device.   Maybe that’s changed today.   Let’s hope it has.”
    He looked disappointed.   “Not every mystery has a solution,
Jennifer.   You need to be prepared
for the fact that we might never know who did this.   This isn’t a book and it isn’t a movie where everything is
wrapped up in a neat bow at the end.   Those stories are illusions.   This is real life, and real life often fails us.   Whoever attacked us might be satisfied
with me in a hospital bed.   That
could have been all they needed to feel vindicated for whatever it is they
needed to feel vindicated about.   It could end with this, or it could have just begun.   Until I speak with my team, that’s all
I know.   And that’s the truth.”
    “Thank you for telling me the truth.”
    “I should have told you the truth a week
ago.”
    “We’re beyond that now, OK?”
    “All right.”
    “And thank you for the note you left
me.   It was lovely.”
    A wariness crossed his face that I hadn’t
seen in him before.   For a moment,
he looked on edge.   “You’ve read
it?”
    “Of course I read it.”
    “When?”
    “That night on the roof deck.   I read it when you were with Henri
Dufort.”
    “And then the shit hit right
afterward.   My timing is
impeccable.   I was hoping that it
would lead to a special evening between us after the party.   It didn’t.”
    “So it didn’t.   But we’re here now.   You’re focused and your eyes are clear, for which I’m grateful.   And I’m all right.   My bruises and cuts will heal, and so
will yours.”   At that moment, I
made a decision.   I pushed my inner
demons aside, leaned down to his ear and told him the truth about how I felt
about us.   “And as your girlfriend,
I can’t wait to get you out of here and home so we can make love in your bed.”
    I kissed him, and he kissed me back with
such ferocity that it surprised me.   I thought he was still weak.   Not the case—his strength was back.   He gripped the back of my head and pulled me in close to
him.   It was a kiss filled with
such passion, relief and meaning—and with what Blackwell likely
considered love—that I let it wash over me and tumble through me such
that my heart started to quicken as my stomach fell away.
    “I love you,” he said in my ear.
    “Oh, Alex.”
    “I know you need time.   I know this is all new to you.   But do you feel something close to
love?”
    I don’t know why, but my eyes welled up
with tears again.   I think the
reaction was fueled by two feelings: happiness that someone actually considered
me worthy of love, which no man in my life ever had, and utter fear that this
man did when a part of me still felt that unworthiness.   I needed to shake that part of my life
off.   I needed to listen to Blackwell.   I needed to trust men again.   As foreign and as fearful as it was for
me to trust any man, I needed to trust Alex.   I would never forget my father’s abuse, but that didn’t mean
that I didn’t have it within me to shelve it and move forward.   It was time to think rationally.   Every man wasn’t like my father.   I needed to believe in that.
    I took a breath and kissed him again.   “I’m falling for you, Alexander
Wenn.   I’m falling fast, and it
scares the hell out of me for some reasons you know, and other reasons you
might never understand.   But I’m
working on those reasons.   I’m
doing my best to work through all of my stupid issues—”
    “They’re not stupid.”
    “Maybe.   Maybe not.   But
what happened between my father and me over the course of all those years did
happen and it did affect me.   Of
course it did.   How couldn’t