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Raphael stood and went to one of the two windows. “I thought you were dead,” he said, his back to me.
“What?” I started, swallowing the lump in my throat.
He faced me but remained where he was. “I have this nightmare—I’ve had it for six years now—where I keep seeing the fire at the house, keep running inside to save my mother, and keep finding her too late.”
A weight heavy as a pile of bricks settled in the room with us.
“Well, it changed over the last few weeks.”
He ran both hands through his hair, then tucked them into his pockets and gave me a strange sort of smile.
“It wasn’t my mother I kept finding anymore.”
He paced to the other window, then seemed to force himself to look at me.
“It became you, Sofia. It was your body I’d find minutes too late.”
Warm tears spilled from my eyes, and I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came, not for what seemed like a very long time. And when it did come, I sounded strange, not like myself.
“Raphael, it’s a dream. A nightmare. It’s not real.”
“The fire was real. You almost died.”
It felt like I was hearing his words one at a time, slow to process their meaning. Not wanting to.
“I meant what I said at the church. That I’d let you go. I thought that was the right thing to do.” He stopped, took a deep breath in. “I still do.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he held up his hand to stop me.
“But you need to know something first. I lied to you, Sofia. I promised you truth, and I lied to you.”
“Raphael—”
“At the church. What you said—when you told me you loved me—it caught me off guard. I didn’t realize...”
He drew something out of his pocket. It was my ring, the one I’d left in the bathroom.
“This is ridiculous, isn’t it? Fucking ring of thorns.”
I had no words.
“But they fit. Being married to me, Sofia, you will always have the thorns, only there is no rose.”
I stood, but my knees buckled, and I fell back into my chair, choking on a sob that came from somewhere deep inside me.
I knew what he was doing. And I was right. This was good-bye. He would sign that contract, but he wouldn’t be selling back my freedom. He’d be buying it from my grandfather.
And this time, it was so much harder than at the church. This time, it would destroy me. Because telling me he didn’t love me, as much as that had hurt, this was worse.
He slipped the ring on his thumb and came to me.
“I love you, Sofia, and almost losing you—” He shook his head, rubbed the scruffy two-days growth on his chin. “I’m fucked up and angry, and I can’t keep you.”
“No.”
He knelt before me and took my face in his hands, wiping away tears with his thumbs.
“No matter how much I want to, I can’t keep you. Your grandfather, he’s got one thing wrong about Moriarty. He won’t stop. He won’t care about this piece of evidence. His hate for me, it puts you in too much danger. The other night was evidence of that. No matter what, we would always be looking over our shoulders.”
“No. Not with the evidence.”
“Even if it weren’t for him, Sofia, I should never have brought you here. I should never have started this. Punishing you to punish your grandfather? Look what came of that.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?”
He rose to stand, bringing me with him, and with my face in his hands, he kissed me. It was a rough kiss. A final one.
“I love you, Sofia.”
His gaze bore into mine as if he would memorize every detail of my face.
“I love you too much to do this to you.”
Before I could even respond, before I’d even processed his words, he pushed me aside and picked up the pen lying on the table and signed his name to the contract. I watched, stupefied, as he scrawled his signature on the sheet, then set the pen down and placed my ring beside it.
With one more look at me, he reached for the envelope containing the memory card, tucked it into his pocket, turned, and walked out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sofia
After Raphael left the office, I stood in the room, staring after him. Staring at the space where he’d just been before falling back into my chair, my legs unable to support me.
I wasn’t sure what would be easier, thinking he didn’t love me or knowing the truth. Although I guess I knew there was no easy. This would hurt. It would hurt for a very long time.
My grandfather and the attorneys walked back into the room. No one seemed to take notice of me. Grandfather set the ring and pen aside and checked the signature on the contract.
