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Georgina’s made me need her. Every smile. Every word. Every sigh. Every touch. She’s made me need them more than my next breath.
“One day,” she sniffs. “One day, Freddie, I’m going to settle for another man, and you will have to watch me marry him and have his children. And maybe I’ll never love him the way I love you. Maybe my heart will never worship him the way mine worships you. But he will own me. He will own my body and…an—”
The word becomes a long sob, and if she wanted to repay me for every drop of pain I’ve ever caused her, she’s done it. In one fell swoop.
Georgina looks down at her feet. The stubborn set of her jaw trembles with every heaved breath. Then, with a wordless nod, she levels me with her tear-drenched stare.
“I wish you could see that I’m better. I’m the one you’ll regret pushing away. The one you’ll be sorry for leaving behind.”
Searching eyes flit between mine, and when she comes up empty, she doesn’t waste time turning on her heels and walking out. The breeze of her light scent lingers behind her as long, lean legs carry her away from me.
All I can do is force myself to watch her leave even as my insides scream to go after her. However, maybe this is for the best. Besides, she would’ve left eventually. She would’ve realised I’m not what she wants me to be.
Turning, I head back towards the treatment room. My gaze meets Lucy’s, and she smiles. It’s the first genuine smile she’s graced me with since she’s been back, and I can’t bring myself to return it. It’s wasted on me because the light is gone. The world that I thought was dark before is pitch-black around me. For the first time in years, I feel like that silly little boy kicking and screaming for his mother, crying for something that was impossible.
Tucking her hair behind her ear, Lucy shuffles to the edge of the bed with her mother’s help while Harry talks to the doctor. Before she can get up, Arabella and Casper come out of the room Christopher is being treated in for mild smoke inhalation. There’s something like pity twisting the angry fire scorching in her eyes as she stands in front of me.
“Shame on you,” she spits. “Shame on you for not knowing when to stop. Shame on you for not valuing something so precious. Shame on you for being so cold. You are every bit your mother’s son.”
I can’t deny that.
“You keep breaking her heart, and she won’t have one left to love you with in the end,” she grits out between clenched teeth, her arms wrapping protectively over her belly. “The sad part is that it’s not just you that will miss out on it. It’ll be her too. Georgina needs a heart, Freddie—it’s what makes her different to all of us. It’s what’s special about her. She feels everything deeper than you realise. It’s who she is, and you’re breaking her.”
Furrowed eyes flit between mine, maybe searching for the same thing Georgina was looking for. But I stare at her blankly, swallowing down the urge to bite and yell back at her. What Arabella doesn’t realise is that I already know all of this. Every word she’s preaching, I’m well aware of.
“If you care for her at all…” She pauses like it pains her to finish the sentence, but it doesn’t stop her from doing so. “If you care for Georgie at all, let her go. Let her be.” Then because she doesn’t do half measures or partially delivered messages, she adds, “If you love her—”
“I don’t do love.” It’s impossible. I can’t give her what she wants. It doesn’t matter what I do, the words she needs to hear never sound from my lips. They’ve been muted somewhere in my DNA, and I can’t fix that.
Arabella gapes at me. Mouth opening and closing as though she’s trying to find the perfect daggered word to avenge her sister’s hurt.
“Everyone loves, Freddo.” It’s not her that delivers that nugget. Cassie stops beside me as she and Leo prepare to leave with Lucian in tow. Her hand gently squeezes my uninjured arm with the slightest smile that really does transport me back to when we were both kids and she was the only one I allowed to get close.
“Not me,” I tell her as bluntly as I can so that they know the conversation is over.
“Let her go, then,” Arabella walks around me, stopping only to shake her head in disgust when I murmur, “I can’t.”
“Figure out a way to,” Casper barks at me at the same time as his fist cracks straight into the middle of my face. Blood instantly pours from my nose as my eyes blur with jarring tears. “I told you once to get the fuck out of her life,” he bites out as he rears back and goes for my jaw, narrowly missing as I edge away from his fist.
“I wasn’t the one that brought her here!” The retort comes out as more of a sputter as my blood gurgles at the back of my throat. Without restraint, my hands fist around the collar of his T-shirt as he does the same to mine, shaking me hard enough that the painkillers the nurse gave me can’t numb the pain. “I told you to take her home.”
“No, you should’ve kept your fucking word.” With his forehead butting mine, we’re in a gridlock of fists and wills, my raging breaths spraying blood all over his face. “All you had to do was go to that fucking church and make good on what you promised her.”
I should have, but, “I couldn’t!”
“Yeah, you could. You’re just a fucking coward.” The nurses start floundering around us, and while Leo and Lucian try to split us up, he spits, “You’re nothing like your mother. At least she had the fucking guts to leave and stay the fuck away.”
“Stop it!” Cassie screams, ramming into the side of us with her hands. That’s all it takes for Leo to get involved.
“Are the two of you really going to do this here? Right now?”
“For God’s sake, will you stop? You’re acting like an absolute barbarian!” Cassie grasps my face, trying to get me to look at her. “Hurting him isn’t going to fix things or prove him wrong.”
Lucian wraps an arm around my shoulders from behind me when I don’t slacken my grip. Tugging back, he tries to choke me away from Casper while Leo does the same to him.
“You keep blaming her.” Casper yanks me closer. “But it’s you. You’re the fucking problem.”
Leo tightens his forearm around his neck enough that his hold loosens on me, and while there’s a gap between us, Cassie slips into the middle.
