Читать книгу A Yuletide Seduction - Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 7

GOLD.

Bright, shiny, tarnished gold.

She didn’t want to touch it any more than she needed to, didn’t want it touching her either, the metal seeming to burn her flesh where it nestled on her left hand.

She pulled the gold from her finger. It wasn’t difficult to do. She was so much slimmer than when the ring had first been placed on her finger. In fact, the ring had become so loose that it had spun loosely against her skin, only her knuckles stopping it from falling off by itself.

How she wished it had fallen off, fallen to the ground, never to be seen again. She should have pulled it off, wrenched it from her finger, weeks ago, months ago, but she had been consumed with other things. This tiny scrap of gold lying in the palm of her hand hadn’t seemed important then.

But it was important now. It was the only physical reminder she had that she had ever—ever—

Her fingers closed around the small ring of metal, so tightly that her nails dug into her flesh, breaking through the skin. But she was immune to the pain. She even welcomed it. Because that slight stinging sensation in her hand, the show of blood, told her that she, at least, was still real. Everything around her seemed to have crumbled and fallen apart, until there was nothing left. She was the only reality, it seemed.

And this ring.

She unclenched her fingers, staring down at the ring, fighting back the memories just the sight of it evoked. Lies. All lies! And now he was dead, as dead as their marriage had been.

Oh, God, no! She wouldn’t cry. Never that. Not again. Not ever again!

She quickly blinked back those tears before they could fall. Remember. She had to remember, to keep on remembering, before she would be allowed to forget! If she ever did…

But first she had to get rid of this ring. She never wanted it near her again, never wanted to set eyes on it again, or for anyone else to do so either.

Her fingers curled around it again, but lightly this time, and she lifted up her arm, swung it back as far as it would go, before launching it forward again. And as she did so she threw the ring as far as it would go, as far away from her as she could make it fly, watching as it spun through the air in what seemed like slow motion, making hardly a ripple in the water as it was swallowed up by the swiftly running river in front of her, falling down, to be sucked in by the mud and slime at the bottom of the river.

It took her several breath-holding seconds to realise it had gone. Finally. Irrevocably. And with its falling came release, freedom, a freedom she hadn’t known for such a long, long time.

But freedom to do what…?