“I don’t believe that.”
“You may have been his friend, but you haven’t been there. You don’t know him anymore. We don’t speak, he won’t even look at me. I’m nothing to him.”
His throat bobs and his brows draw in. “I wish things turned out differently for you. I’m sorry for whatever role I played in that.”
There’s no need for him to apologize, because he didn’t play a role in that. Whether or not Weston ever made it back didn’t force my father to treat me the way he did, or make decisions for my life the way he has. As far as I’m concerned, Weston wasn’t part of my life at all until I learned who he was the day I stepped foot on Dawnlin.
“What if we can’t ever get back?” I ask.
“We’re not giving up hope. I won’t ever stop trying.”
Anger still courses through me, because I hate to admit it, but I trusted Weston, and he hid something this important from me. But even though I’m still angry with him, I can’t help how my feelings have changed about the entire situation.
Everything he’s done has been to protect me, to help me and my family. He says it is out of duty, but I can’t help but feel there’s more than he is willing to admit. The way he looks at me, the way he touches me, the way hekissedme, it doesn’t feel like he’s doing it solely because he swore an oath as the First Guard.
He says it is his duty to protect me, but what if it is his duty that is holding him back? What if that is why everything he’s done in the past few days has been so confusing?
And how can I hate a man who has given up so much for me? Saving my mother would have changed my life, my childhood. If he had been worthy and returned home, everything would have been different. Even if he came home empty-handed, maybe he would have helped my father be a better man.
But Dane stopped him from coming home.
Dane is the one that hurt my family and hurt me, in more ways than one.
Heis the one that is keeping everyone from their loved ones, refusing to give them the ability to say goodbye or move on with life.
It’s Dane that needs to be stopped.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
“I didn’t want to keep it from you, princess. But I didn’t see any other way.”
“You were right,” I say, the sound coming out garbled with the angry tears that are forming alongside the lump in my throat. “I wouldn’t have believed you. I guess I get my stubbornness from him.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
I glare at him. “I don’t want to be anything like him.”
“He’s not a bad man. He just may have gone about things in a bad way. You have to understand what he went through, too.”
The anger bubbles up inside me again, too fast for me to control it.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. You talk about your life not being sacrificed here, how you’ll walk back into Blackwood like no time has passed. That wasn’t my life, Weston! My life was wasted away in a castle because I needed to beprotected. He did that. He stole it from me, probably because he’s so furious I stole her from him!”
He opens his mouth, but I cut him off before he can say anything else.
“Both of you, you’re the fucking same. You won’t let me do anything here, or you are furious if I do, because I needprotection. I’m not fragile, Weston! He already took one life away from me. Don’t take my life away here too!”
He looks like I’ve slapped him, but I don’t regret what I said. He just wanted to be Weston here, so why can’t he understand Iwant the same? To just be Lennox? Not the princess that needs protection, not the person who has others decide for her. I just want to forget it.
“Your duty is to my father, not to me,” I say. “Here I’m just another one of the crew.”
His jaw clenches and his body tenses. “If that’s the way you want it, princess.”
“It is,” I say firmly.
My stomach sinks and my fingertips tingle, but I stand firm. I don’t want him treating me differently and fawning over me, but somewhere deep down, I wonder if the friendship we’ve developed is even real, or if it’s only been because of his duty. Has every part of our relationship stemmed from his duty, just like Brynne, and Tila, and Edmond? Has Sig’s? Was everything I thought I had here not real at all and is about to slip through my fingers?
He nods and looks away, his eyes fixed on something across the room. He clears his throat before he speaks again.
