Chapter Eight

Alexander's POV:

I could pretend that I had completely forgotten about the way Samuel held the journal and seemed to threaten her with it. The way she seemed to be afraid for just a moment there before she had turned the tables on him completely. I didn't know how I could keep acting like this, but I was consumed by passion, by love for this lady despite the secrets that were shrouding her at the moment.

I couldn't bring myself to question anything, not when the enemy was obviously in my face. I needed to take care of him as soon as possible. And only after that would I start asking more questions and digging deeper, just to make sure that she was also clean and very transparent, and I knew everything that there was to know about her secrets. There were some things that I didn't like at all. I wanted everything to be clear as day between both of us if we were going to be in a relationship with each other.

The way she responded to my touch, the way she answered my statement just now—she has been wanting me—still rang in my ears right now. And I knew from that alone that she wanted us to take things further. Well, I was the biggest candidate for that. I wanted that myself more than anyone, so yes, we would have to stop hiding secrets from each other. Whatever was in that journal, I would read it. I would make sure I got everything, all the information there, and that there was no secret of hers that I didn't know myself. After that, only after that, could we finally trust each other with everything.

"Take him away," I said, frowning at the soldiers for having him still in the room. He should have been gone in like a couple of light years ago, yet he was still here. Why would they let him remain to watch me kiss the girl that I loved with all my heart? They started taking him away. Then, as if they had been frozen in time, they also wanted to watch. I rolled my eyes. All of them were perverts, I concluded, not turning back to look at her.

She took a step backward, backing away. Is it that she didn't want it or she was just shy? Either way, I couldn't continue now because I decided that it was best to handle the other issues at hand now that I had the perfect opportunity to do so. I smiled, turning to look for the journal where it had been. I searched around for a while before my eyes widened. I didn't see it. Where had it gone?

"Where's the journal?" I asked her. I looked straight into her eyes and saw apprehension. Then there it wasn't exactly fear—it was just, well, uncertainty.

She answered me carefully, her words calculated. "What do you want with the journal?"

"Why, to read it, of course," I told her, looking straight at her. I didn't like being some kind of questionnaire to her. I didn't want it to be as if I was interrogating her for a kind of investigation. I simply wanted her to be free with me and not to question my decisions, to simply open up to me about everything. I trusted her—why wouldn't she let me trust her to the fullest, especially since I was not hiding anything from her personally?

She nodded solemnly. "Are you with it?" I asked her, finally unable to continue delaying. I really wanted to see it now. What was making her so anxious about it? What was written in that journal that she didn't want anyone to know? I wanted to be in on it—her darkest desires and secrets. I had a feeling that I was going to know a lot more about her from reading through it.

But when I thought about it, maybe there was a reason why she didn't want me to read through it. It was her personal life, after all. Sure, she called it a journal and not a diary, but I was pretty sure that she recorded her daily events there and that she didn't want someone like me to read through everything and suddenly know her from the inside out. One would be a little secure about events like this, and no one wanted someone to suddenly know about everything involving their personal life.

I smiled at her comfortingly. "Don't worry, I'll read it with you," I told her. I didn't know whether that was something supposed to soothe her, but somehow the words just came out of me. It was the best I could do to comfort her. It didn't indicate that she was comforted in the least—okay, a failed mission, but it didn't matter. I was going to get that diary—well, journal—and I was going to read it.

I waited for her to answer my question before asking it again, deciding that maybe she had forgotten. "I'm not with it," she said, raising her hands up in surrender. I raised an eyebrow, scanning her as much as I could from this distance. From her expression and her gesture, I could tell that she wasn't actually with it.

"Where is it then?" I asked before the answer clicked in my mind. It somehow just came to me out of the blue. "It's with him," I thought to myself before I stomped my foot on the ground in annoyance. Samuel actually took it with him? How annoying! He should have at least left it with me. Now did he want me to come and beg him for it or something? Was he trying to use such a superficial tool as a bargaining chip against me?

I could hardly believe it. Okay, maybe he had other plans—I couldn't really fathom what he had in mind after all, but whatever it was, it wasn't going to work. I had all the cards in this little game of ours, and he had absolutely nothing at all. He didn't even have anything to use to start playing the game in the first place. So even before the game started, I had already won.

"Just give me a moment, I'll get it back," I told her, taking a step towards the door, but she was holding me back now, her hand tapping my arm lightly and stopping me in my tracks. I stood there frozen by her touch. There was something about it, something I couldn't run away from. When she acted like this, I simply needed to stop and hear what she had to say, no matter how urgent and how much I wanted to do what I had in mind.

"Please don't go," she said. I raised an eyebrow at her in question.

"I just want to read through it, and I'll read it with you so anything you don't want me to really see, you can stop me, and as long as I see that it's not very important, I'm going to obey your wishes," I told her.

She shook her head. "No, don't you trust me?" she questioned. "Everything there, it's my personal life. It's a thing that I recorded for my eyes only to see, my own personal observations. I don't want anyone reading through it."

I frowned at her in question. "But Samuel has it. I should at least retrieve it from him," I told her.

She shook her head. "Just leave it with him. I will retrieve it by myself," she said. "As long as he's in the cell now. Isn't he in the cell?" she questioned.

I contemplated for a while. "Yes, he's in the cell," I said in response, frowning.

"Well then, leave it," I heard from her. I contemplated for a while, thinking carefully. Did I want to do what she wanted this time around? Well, somehow my body just didn't want me to stop. I decided finally that I would pacify her. I took a moment and then stood still, looking at her with a smile. She hugged me tightly as if she already knew that I had agreed to her request.

Sure, sure, why not, I thought, hugging her back and glad for the physical contact. However, my mind was racing. I was thinking carefully now and making up a plan—one that she wouldn't be so happy about if she could read my mind. I would go over and read through the journal later on. I would retrieve it from Samuel before she did, just a moment before he got the information from it and before she came over to force it out of him. Then I'd give it back to him and command him to give it to her as if he hadn't given it to me in the first place.

That way, I could know everything that was written in it without her thinking that I did. "And you're the one that's advocating for not keeping secrets—wouldn't that be a secret?" a small voice asked in my mind, but I cut it short. Whatever I needed to know—I trusted her, but I needed to trust her more, and this was the only way for me to finally let everything loose and stop doubting anything. I would do it. So even though we were both smiling now and I felt like a traitor, I simply didn't change my mind.