The Carrero Contract - Finding Freedom (Book 3 of Contract Trilogy)

6

Sleep eludes me. Not that I thought it wouldn't, but it's frustrating just the same.

I spend what seems like forever tossing and turning in the bed, unable to clear my mind of anything and everything and rolling myself into a frustrated mess. Up and down like a yoyo. Mood and emotions twisting me up and trawling me out just to do it over again. My bedclothes get so screwed into an unholy mess I end up getting up and fixing them several times, so unsettled and restless that I'm making myself crazier than hell.

I can't think straight because I'm so utterly tired, yet I can't clear my head enough to close my eyes and think of nothing at all. It's exhausting and making me irrational and tearful all at the same time.

He really has a lot to answer for.

Alexi is all up in there in a hundred different ways. Good and bad, I guess. Churning over months of scenarios and shining a new light on meanings and outcomes. Picking apart every conversation we have had since I came back. Pawing over hurt and happier memories like I can't really believe any of it for how they seemed anymore. Face value means nothing now I'm looking backwards.

Sex, confessions, Rick, life in general around Alexi. It's all a jumbled, confusing bundle of a mixed and muddled mess. Trying to slice open all that I thought I knew and add this new insight to every detail. Trying to take away the obvious and apply a lot of double meanings to really see Alexi acting like someone who gave a shit instead of someone who didn't.

And that one burning question which is sending me into an emotional meltdown.

What now?

I know I love him; I can't deny that fact no matter how hard I try. It is how it is, even if I don't like it, but loving him and admitting it to him and giving him the last ounces of power over me terrify me. I don't think I can do it.

I can't forget what he did or how easily he can rip me to shreds. He may be playing nice now, but what if he turns, what if we don't work or I piss him off? Can I ever trust him with all of me once again? I have been there and done that and he threw me aside like an empty rubbish sack.

You don't do that if you care.

He wants us to be something more.

What does that even mean? What is more? Can we be more than what we are? Is that even possible, given where we have come from and what has gone on between us? What does 'more' mean for him and what would he expect from me to be that 'more'?

A relationship?

I don't even know what that is like, even by normal standards. I never had a real relationship with anyone in my life; in any way. Not even any sort of real two-sided friendship let alone love; well Mico and Jackson don't really count because it's business, and they are paid to tolerate me.

My own mother couldn't stand to look at me and I don't know how to form long-term bonds or trust with anyone, let alone a man who crushed me in two and was the root of me trying to end my life.

Trust is a funny thing, and despite my affections for Mico and Jackson, I don't even think I trust them. And they have done nothing for me to doubt them. How can I begin to learn to trust Alexi? After everything he has put me through.

To trust that he cares for me so we could be something more—if he even does.

If I believe him.

I do.

Sort of.

Maybe.