“Quinn…”
She sighed and I patted the spot on the bed next to me.
“If I come back over there, I’ll get distracted and you clearly want to have a discussion about something serious.”
“Quinn,” I said, lowering my voice. “Come here,myshka.”
Her eyes shone like liquid emeralds as she came to me, finally sitting down on the bed. I rolled to my side and propped an elbow underneath my head.
Quinn’s gaze roved over my face, lingering on my scars.
“You don’t want to marry an ugly man,” I said lightly. “That’s what this is about.”
She glared at me. “You’re not ugly. I’ve never thought you were ugly. You know that.”
She was right. It had been my own self-loathing that I’d been projecting. Even years later, I couldn’t battle it back. I still avoided mirrors when I could. It was easier that way.
“The fire burned more than your face, Sasha,” she said quietly.
“Are you talking about my heart?” I asked with a wry twist of my lips.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and set her chin on her kneecaps. “You’re not who you used to be.”
“Neither are you,” I pointed out.
She looked away from me to stare out the window of the cottage bedroom. That morning—Christmas morning—we’d bundled up Helena and walked along the shore. Then we’d returned to the quiet home and exchanged a few gifts by the tree. After putting Helena down for a nap, I’d dragged Quinn to bed and kept her there. Now, it was late afternoon, the sunlight was dying, and our time with one another would soon be interrupted by Helena waking from her nap.
“The fire nearly took everything from us,” she said, her brow wrinkling.
“But it didn’t.”
She looked from me to the door, and I knew she was thinking of Helena. The fire had set things in motion that couldn’t be undone. It had led us here. Without it, Helena would never have come to be. And I had no regrets about her birth. My heart claimed her as mine, and we would see to it that she would never know the truth about her paternity.
“Why won’t you marry me?” I asked.
Quinn was silent for a long moment and then she took a deep shuddering breath. “I want to marry you. I want to marry you more than anything in the world.”
“Then why won’t you set a date? You’ve put my ego through the shredder denying me the way you have.”
She sent me a look. “You have a healthy ego, Sasha Petrovich. I have no doubt it’s still intact.”
“Myshka,” I murmured. “Explain it to me.”
“Every time I look at a wedding dress, I picture Ori.” She kept her eyes on mine. “Every time I visualize marrying you, standing up on an altar surrounded by friends and…and family—”
Her voice broke. Quinn didn’t have any family left. Both her parents and her brother were gone. And she’d been married before.
That was my fault, too.
“I know you want a real wedding, Sasha,” she said, wiping the corners of her eyes where tears had begun to escape. “I don’t want to deny you that, but I…”
“A wedding is a formality.I want to celebrate our union with the people we’ve made our family.Da.But I’d never put my desires over any pain they might cause you.”
“I hate him,” she said softly. “For ruining a day that was supposed to be ours.”
I reached out and gently cradled her cheek. “Hate me instead. I’m the one to blame. I left you. You were vulnerable and fragile and hurting, and he preyed on you. If I hadn’t left—”
“I know why you had to leave. You needed to. I needed you to also, I just didn’t realize it at the time.” She sighed. “I had to learn how to stand alone. I’d never had to be strong before. I had my father, who gave me everything. His money cleared any and every path. Whatever I wanted, it was given. Sports cars, beautiful clothes, vacations in Europe or island paradises. I was a spoiled brat. And then you came along.”
