Chapter TWENTY-THREE

JOSEF

I felt her tense, and I rubbed my palm up and down her back.

God, I loved touching her.

She was so soft, so warm.

“Do you want to tell me?” I asked, allowing myself to hope.

“I think I have to tell you,” she replied, and I frowned.

Have to wasn’t the same as want to. I tensed.

A bad feeling crept through me as I held my wife in the dimly lit guest room. We should probably move to our bed, but I was too comfortable to get up just yet.

Besides, I didn’t want to break the fragile trust we were building.

“I need you to understand what really happened all those years ago.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“That night, at the stroke of midnight, when I turned eighteen, I could hardly breathe when I found you in the garden,” she whispered.

I was immediately thrust back in time to that night. Fuck, she was so beautiful. A redheaded angel, skin so soft and pale, she’d glowed in the moonlight.