Sold to the Man Who Took Me, but I Hold His Life novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: Not Yet
Declan's POV
I had told myself I would say it once, plainly, and ask for nothing.
I had a month, and I did not know how many of those days I would get.
She was in the kitchen on Sunday morning with a mug of tea and her hair tied up in a rag, reading the back of a cereal box.
I stood in the doorway.
"Miss Dunleavy. I'm not asking to come in. I'd like to say something, and you can tell me to go."
She put the box down.
"Say it," she said.
I did not take a step into the room.
"I raped you," I said. "I'm sorry. I am sorry for it more than I know how to put in a sentence. I took a thing from you that was not mine, in a room where I knew you couldn't leave, and there is no hour of my life I would not give to have that night back unspent."
She did not move.
Her gray eyes were very clear.
"I'm not asking you to say anything," I said. "I'm not asking you to say it's all right. It isn't. I only wanted you to hear it said straight, once, from me, in daylight."
The kitchen was quiet.
A gull went over the roof and screamed.
"No," Roz said.
I waited.
"I don't accept it," she said. She said it without heat, the way she might refuse a drink. "I'm not going to say it's all right and I'm not going to say I forgive you. You can't hand me an apology like a receipt."
"I know."
"Don't say it again," she said, "until it can cost you something."
"What would it cost me?" I said.
"I don't know yet." She lifted her mug and drank. "Go away, Declan."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Sold to the Man Who Took Me, but I Hold His Life are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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