Don't hope

Don't hope
~ Camilla

For a long moment after he kissed me, that impossibly soft, gentle kiss that felt like it belonged in another universe, I just lay there staring at the ceiling while he drifted back to sleep beside me.

And my mind… my mind did the worst possible thing it could do.

It began to hope.

God, the betrayal of it. I could feel it rising like warm, golden smoke inside my chest, that stupid flutter that said maybe, maybe, maybe he was changing. Maybe the rescue, the fear of losing me, the sleepless nights… maybe something in him cracked open. Maybe there was a heart tangled somewhere inside all the power and coldness of his heart. Maybe he could be different with me. Softer. Better. And the moment that thought formed, the moment I felt the first spark of warmth, another part of me, the part he had scorched over and over again, slammed the brakes so hard my breath nearly punched out of me.

Stop it, Camilla. Snap out of it.You know exactly what this is. You’ve played this game before, and he always wins.

My brain scrambled through every memory like someone flipping violently through pages in a book.

The first time he kissed me, the way he warned me, warned me, that this was sex, nothing more. No expectations. No emotions. No pretending.

The day he stood there, expression carved out of marble, and let Isabella mock me to my face, the mistress who practically perched on his lap. And he didn’t defend me. Not once. Not even a flicker of discomfort.

I remembered the hollow pit in my stomach as he turned to me later and said, almost casually, “You don’t have the right to be upset. This is just sex. I don't do love.”

I was just a body he enjoyed. I was just convenience. The heat of shame rolled through me as memory after memory crashed forward.

The storage locker, Christ. The cold metal beneath my back. His hand gripping my thighs like he owned every piece of me. The way he looked at me afterward, half amused, half dismissive, as if he could walk out the door and never think of me again.

His desk. The way he’d taken me from behind without warning, one hand over my mouth, his breath hot on my neck, murmuring things that made my toes curl and my heart shrivel at the same time. And then later that day, the exact same day, he had walked right past me in the hallway as if I were air. Nothing. Not a glance. Not a hello. Not a sign that he had been inside me less than two hours earlier.

So why, why on earth was I lying here with hope blooming stupidly in my chest over one soft kiss and the weight of his hand around mine?

A shaky breath clawed its way out of my lungs. I pressed the heel of my palm to my forehead, trying to trap the rising panic. My stomach twisted.

This isn’t real, Camilla. This softness is temporary. He is temporary.

He said it himself, he isn’t built for emotional things. He told me straight out that I shouldn’t expect more from him than sex and necessity. And when a man shows you who he is… why am I lying here hoping he might be someone else?

My heart pounded harder. Faster.

The panic tasted metallic and bitter.

I remembered the night he told me to keep my “feelings” to myself. The way he said it without even looking up from his phone. The way it felt like something inside me cracked and collapsed, small and silent.

Oh God. What am I doing? What am I thinking?

My breathing sped up. I pressed a hand to my belly, as if the baby could somehow anchor me back into reality.

He held you because you were kidnapped. He kissed you softly because you’re carrying his heir. He was gentle because he thought he might lose control of the situation.

Not because he loves you. Not because he wants you. Not because his heart is changing.

I curled slightly, careful not to wake him, but unable to stop the tremble in my limbs. My throat burned with anger. With frustration. With that terrible, humiliating ache that came when a woman started hoping while knowing she shouldn’t.

The worst part was that thing that made me want to scream into the pillow.

A tiny, betraying part of me whispered: But what if…? What if this really was something new?

What if nearly losing me scared him? What if the baby made something shift? What if the gentleness wasn’t an accident?

My thoughts ricocheted so violently it made my head hurt.

You idiot. He had you in a storage locker. He let his mistress degrade you. He told you this was sex, nothing else. He humiliated you in front of other people like you were nothing more than a rumor he hadn’t bothered to deny. He treated you like property. He has never, ever, ever let you believe you mattered.

And now one kiss makes you forget everything? I squeezed my eyes shut. Hard.

I hated the part of me that softened. I hated the part of me that wanted to believe. I hated the part of me that leaned toward him even now, my body traitorous, aching, remembering the warmth of his arm around my waist.

My heart and my logic were engaged in a full-on fistfight, and logic was losing. My pulse raced. My fingers shook.

If I let myself believe he could love me… If I let myself fall into this softness he was giving me…

If I thought, even for one second, that I mattered beyond the baby…

And he returned to the cold man he had always been…

It would break me utterly and completely. My breath hitched. The panic unfurled in my ribcage like a dark flower. I turned my face into the pillow, silently falling apart while he slept beside me like nothing was wrong.

My mind repeated the same useless mantra over and over: Don’t hope. Don’t hope. Don’t hope.

But God… I already had.