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If there was a God, He would know Chloe had tried. She tried to delude herself, to lie to her heart and convince it that it wasn’t bleeding; that the agonizing pain threatening to tear her chest apart was just… the angry voice of her wounded pride. Granted, she was tiptoeing on the line of love for quite some time entertaining the idea of letting herself fall but she never actually crossed said line, did she? No. Well, yes, she had been fantasizing about her partner and yes, the ridiculous possibility of the two of them together in some sort of romantic relationship had held a certain appeal to her but not so much that his silent departure from her life would cause her heart to shatter. Nope.
She missed him. He was a valuable asset in her police work and his absence was becoming noticeable in the growing pile of unsolved cases on her desk.
She was disappointed.
And betrayed.
And she hated him.
She hated him for storming into her life and wrecking her world; for tearing down her carefully built walls and awakening a side of her she was determined to keep buried.
She hated him for breaking her trust; for letting her believe that she could rely on him; for convincing her that he would always be by her side.
She hated him for playing with her feelings; for giving her hope that there might be something more blossoming between them, something real.
Oh, no, she might not have been fully in love with Lucifer but there was no denying her feelings for him had now sunk into the black depths of pure hatred.
She hated his face; the beautiful features crawling their way into her mind every time she closed her eyes as if burnt into the back of her eyelids; the smile that could brighten up the whole world; the piercing dark eyes setting fire to her soul whenever he gazed at her with that devastating expression of sheer awe as if she was the incarnation of his every dream and desire; the boyish look of pure joy he had whenever she showed him any kind of affection.
Was it all a game? Was his ego really that wounded by her rejection that he would pull off such elaborate spectacle just to make sure that there was indeed no one who ever resisted his charms? Was it his way to grand her some kind of twisted mercy that he had put an end to this charade before harvesting the fruits of his long and exhausting efforts? Surely, in the beginning he must have been aiming to have her willingly in his bed, offering him her body, begging him to be hers, but perhaps with time he had grown to care about her just enough to spare her this cruelty. Perhaps he had decided that having her grant him only her heart was enough.
A weak sigh escaped her lips and startled her in the middle of her crushing train of thought. She shook her head in a furious attempt to regain control over her traitorous mind.
No! Lucifer was not a liar. And he wasn’t trying to deceive her. His affection for her was genuine. Saving her life was genuine. The warmth in his eyes was genuine.
“This is real, isn’t it?”
For a brief moment his voice echoed in her head, tender and full of wonder, making her heart clench with pain. Yes, it was. For her. A shadow of a smile curved up the corners of her lips, never reaching her eyes. Maybe, in a way, it had been real for him, too. Only not enough. Not enough for him to overcome his fear of commitment; not enough for him to change his ways; not enough to make him stay. So he'd run away, abandoning her and everything between them. And she hated him for that.
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Silent tears were still slowly streaming down her face when she finally closed her eyes and let the blissful dream once again come and save her from her misery. And, as every other night, she found herself snuggled in his arms, his soft lips pressed against her hair whispering soothing promises of a future that would never be. She wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders and pulled him closer giving in to the illusion.
And she hated herself. She hated her mind for craving his presence; hated her skin for yearning his touch; hated her soul for praying that one day he would come back. And she hated her heart… For loving him… still.