Page 200 of The Fifth Heir

“It was enough when you defended me in the Hall. It isn’t enough for me to trust you privately.”

Leander closed the legal volume.

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.”

“I have given it.”

“Part of it.”

His control finally broke.

“I am helping you because I cannot stop thinking about you.”

Silence filled the study.

The frost along his teacup spread over the table.

Leander looked at it and drew his power back.

I could have pretended not to understand.

I had seen the way he watched me after Rafe’s flight. I noticed how he avoided the sleeping chamber that morning and how his voice changed when he said Torren’s name.

“You don’t trust me,” I said.

“No.”

“You gave your family information they used against me.”

“Yes.”

“You still believe you should be king.”

“Yes.”

“And you can’t stop thinking about me.”

His jaw tightened. “Those facts are not mutually exclusive.”

“They should be.”

“They would be more convenient if they were.”

The wall runes turned red.

Neither of us looked away.

I thought of Torren’s body over mine and the heat of Rafe’s mouth after the flight. I remembered Shadow hiding the observatory while I called Sebastian by a name no one else used.

I had no reason to feel this pull toward Leander.

But the pull was not the same as trust, and desire was not forgiveness. If he wanted any place beside me, he needed to understand all three.

It remained.

“I slept with Torren,” I said.