Holding on to Hope Read Online Free PDF Page B

is.” He smiled slightly to himself, making Leslie realize how gorgeous he looked with a smile on his handsome face. It didn’t last for long, though. “Then he asked me a question that took me off-guard.” Ronan turned his gaze up again to look into her clueless eyes. “He asked me out,” he said, his blue eyes looking terribly sorrowful.
    “So you guys went out on a date?” Patrick asked with a frown.
    “No, we didn’t.”
    “You said no to him?” Leslie gasped.
    Ronan shook his head a bit. “I couldn’t say anything. Even though I wanted to say yes to him so badly, I didn’t. No way was I going to put his life at risk. So I did what I thought to be the best for him.” He paused and looked between Leslie and Pat, probably trying to gauge their eagerness. “I wiped that part of his memory entirely.”
    For a second, neither she nor Patrick said anything. “You did what?” Leslie asked and briefly glanced at her boyfriend. He was staring at Ronan as if he had gone cuckoo. She couldn’t blame him.
    “I had to glamour him into forgetting that I ever met him.” Ronan spoke each word very carefully.
    Leslie heard Patrick laughing beside her. “Do you think we are some stupid fucktards that we are gonna believe this shit you are feeding us? What the hell!” he yelled and glared daggers at Ian. “What did you do to Brad? Did you assholes drug him, is that it? Les, we have to call the cops r—”
    Before Leslie could register what was happening, Ronan was suddenly standing in front of her boyfriend with his hands holding Patrick’s head in one place. She yelped and jumped as a result, watching as her boyfriend stood still, not moving an inch. Their eyes were engaged in a staring match. Neither of them blinked; neither of them even said a word, and Leslie got the weirdest feeling that the two were going to kiss.
    They didn’t. Instead, Ronan stepped back and resumed his original position. “Wh—?” She gazed at him and then eyed her boyfriend worriedly. “Patrick?”
    “Hey, Les,” he said in a stunned manner and then slowly turned to look in Ronan’s direction. “Who are you?”
    “Ta-da!” A drunken voice came from behind them, and Leslie spared the bored, gothic man another glance.
    She reached her hand up to cup her boyfriend’s cheek and made him face her. “Pat? Don’t you remember him? That’s Ronan.”
    “Is he one of your ex-boyfriends?” Patrick asked.
    Her boyfriend looked clueless and maybe a bit frightened by what was happening to him. Leslie concluded that he had actually forgotten every bit of detail about the man standing in front of them. It proved that everything Ronan had said until then was nothing but the truth, and she also realized how Brad hadn’t been able to remember what had happened the previous night. The mystery had somewhat finally unveiled, yet Leslie wasn’t sure if she liked this.
    “How….” She trailed off, looking at Ronan in disbelief.
    “I have made my point.” He nodded and made a movement to approach them once again.
    Leslie, however, jerked back, keeping a hold on her boyfriend’s shirt. Unfortunately, all there was behind her was the bar counter.
    Ronan held out his hand cautiously and stopped midway. “I am not going to harm him. I am just going to put his memories back in place.”
    “Don’t be afraid, Les,” Ian said.
    “What are you people?” she shouted, looking at each one of them. They all seemed like aliens to her, and that made her hair stand on end. “Are you a vampire?” she asked, looking directly at Ronan and dreaded thinking that he was going to bare his fangs anytime soon.
    “No, Les,” Ronan answered in a rather unsteady way. “I am not a vampire.”
    The plump waitress gave out a sardonic laugh from her corner, and Leslie suddenly felt stupid for saying something like that. She couldn’t help it, though. Ronan could wipe out memories from people’s minds. He said so himself that he’d glamour them into