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I rounded on him. “You know, in her little manifesto, Opal wrote that the best thing you did for me after you bit her was to cut me loose. And, at first, I thought she was being horrible, but she was right. It was cruel the way you strung me along.”

“I didn’t string you along. I wanted to find a way for us to still be together,” he said.

“You were fucking her.”

“Because of the bond, though, because—”

“That excuse is wearing thin,” I said. I advanced on him. I put my forefinger against his chest. “I want you to admit it. Admit you wanted her.”

“It was complicated,” he said in a low voice. “You want it to have been simple, Leo. It’s easier for you if it’s simple. Then I’m the bad guy. I’m no-good, through and through, and you don’t have to feel guilty about throwing me away.”

“You threw me away.”

“It turned out that way,” he said. “But I never wanted to.”

“Do you really believe that?” I shook my head at him. “After everything, do you really think that?”

“Of course,” he said.

I clenched my hands into fists.

“Okay,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “Maybe… a part of me.”

“A part of you what?”

“A part of me wanted free of you. Not all of me, but a part of me. A part of me wanted Opal, and a part of me wanted to be free of all my obligations. A part of me hates being the cyning. A part of me wishes I could have been a famous basketball player. A part of me, hell, wonders what it would be like to be a woman.”

I furrowed my brow. “Yeah?”

“I mean, don’t you think everyone wonders?”

Maybe. Maybe I was curious about being a man, but it didn’t mean that I—

“My point is that these parts of me, they’re not all of me,” he said. “I love you, Leona. I have always loved you. And I love you still, but it killed me to see you with my brother.”

“Well,” I said, shrugging. “Good.”

He flinched.

I stared him down.

His shoulders slumped. “Is that what you want? Are we even now? I hurt you, and you hurt me. Now, we can try to start making it work.”

I shook my head. “Damian…”

“You don’t want Vincent, do you?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I know he doesn’t want to hurt you worse than he already has.”

“He told you that?”

I mean, in those words? Maybe not. “Yeah, he did.”

“So, he told you he would not be with you,” said Damian.

I hesitated.

Damian dragged a hand over his face. “Fuck me. You’re going to be with Vincent. After all this time, and everything that’s gone wrong with my life, and all the hell that I have been through, one painful thing after another, and now I have to watch the love of my life with my brother.”