Mia Knight

“You don’t want a man like me to love you.”

Added 2025-09-25 15:00:16 +0000 UTC

She nodded. Deep down, she knew he was right. Forever with him would be a death sentence. Roth would never be restful or joyful. The man was so emotionally stunted, he didn’t trust himself. He was damaged, paranoid, controlling… He freely admitted that he was probably a sociopath. His need for control would suffocate her and dictate every part of her life. There would be nothing left of her, no part of her he wouldn’t dominate. His violent outbursts were a defense mechanism, a reaction to her pushing at the iron cage he built around himself to contain the monster Kaia feared. He had no idea how to handle a relationship or his emotions, so he hadn’t bothered to engage. Until her. And she paid dearly for it.

It was best to keep their relationship at surface level. To keep it to mind-blowing sex and casual, non-invasive talks. She had to learn to take what came her way and allow him to ignore her when he needed to. He was pulling back for both their sakes. That was sensible. She was the one who was making it difficult by being too emotional and expecting too much. If she married Ford, would she have put the same expectations on him that she had for Roth? No. She wouldn’t have expected love from Ford because it was an arranged marriage. With Roth, she thought she was in a relationship where they chose each other and he loved her. Because of that, she expected so much more. To her utter detriment and endless agony.

She shouldn’t want a man like Roth to love her. With everything she experienced at his hands, she had a good picture of what a future with him would look like and it was nowhere near normal. No sane woman would want that… should want that. He was riddled with faults highlighted in neon signs. She knew enough about James Roth to run in the opposite direction.

She shouldn’t want him to love her.

But she did.

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Sins. Please do not share or distribute.