Betrayed by Love by Lila Dubois

arrogant fool he’d been. He’d been so overwhelmed by events, so blinded by his presumed failings and then the hurt of her leaving that he hadn’t seen what was in front of him.
    He stood at the small door set into the wall beside the massive barn door, hoping words would come. He wanted to apologize, to beg her forgiveness, to wrap her in his arms and protect her from the past.
    You murdered me.
    He words from Chicago now made horrifying sense. He could tell her he hadn’t known, that it had been a mistake, but it was he who had led her into that room, he who had strapped her to the table.
    He opened the door.

Chapter Eight
     
    Savannah stood, wiping her hands on a cloth. She felt calmer now that she’d sketched. The door to the barn opened. She stiffened but didn’t turn to see who was there.
    “Savannah.”
    His voice didn’t surprise her and she realized she’d been expecting it, been expecting him. He stood in the doorway, tall, strong, seeming both larger and harder than he’d been five years ago.
    “Savannah,” he said, and his image wavered. She blinked and tears slid down her cheeks.
    The late-afternoon sunlight left his face in shadow and, in that moment, when the world seemed to wait, she saw before her not the man she’d met again last night, nor the man she’d been betrayed by all those years ago, but the boy she fell in love with.
    “Roman?” she whispered.
    “Savannah.” He ran to her, scooping her up in his arms. She froze, shocked and angry that he would touch her, but there was something in his voice, in the way he said her name that made her feel it wasn’t the stranger who she’d seen in Chicago or the man who’d betrayed her, but her beloved who held her. Savannah buried her face in his neck and sobbed. Being held by him brought her back, back to the time when she was happiest.
    “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. He hurt you. I’m sorry, so sorry I didn’t come for you.” She didn’t understand what he was saying, but she didn’t care, not right then. His body was just as firm as she remembered, his arms as strong and sure around her. He smelled the same. She pulled away to look at him. There were lines at the corners of his eyes. His face was harder, leaner and his eyes grim.
    The boy she loved was gone. The man holding her was a stranger.
    Savannah pushed away, turning her back on him. How sickly masochistic she was to let the man who had betrayed her so cruelly into her arms.
    “Why are you here?”
    “Savannah, please.”
    “What do you want from me?”
    “Just to talk to you. There are things I need to explain and things I should say, questions I want to ask. I’ll leave whenever you want. All you have to do is tell me to go and I’ll be gone. But please, let me talk to you. We’ve wasted so much time… I think you deserve answers from me.”
    “I’ve learned to live without them,” she said, back still to him.
    There was a beat of silence. She heard him sigh.
    “The Stalwoods are outside.”
    “I know. They rescued me. Took a job on this coast to be close to me.”
    “I should have rescued you,” he said, voice low with conviction.
    “Rescued me? You’re the one they rescued me from.”
    Silence filled the studio, uncomfortable and heavy.
    “Are these yours?” He was standing by an easel, frowning at a half-finished painting.
    “No. I don’t paint anymore.”
    “They don’t look like your work.” He wandered from easel to easel, ending at her desk area where one of the sketches for the sculpture she was making for his building lay. It was a rough drawing, not nice enough to have been included in the portfolio.
    “I recognized us in this,” he said. “That’s what made me come after you. Even after I saw the artist’s name, I didn’t think it was you. Your work was never this dark. But it’s us, isn’t it?”
    “It is.”
    “The knife in his hand, my hand. The murder weapon?”
    “She’s not dead,” Savannah said, tracking him with