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Her anger was immediately sheathed, and her hand went to my shoulder then into my hair, tucking it behind my ear like Mom used to do. “Melanie, it’s okay… Don’t ruin your makeup.”
I took a few deep breaths to make myself calm, to stave off the tears. “I know I can get him to set you free. I know I can…” Any other plan was pointless to me because this one would work. It would just take time. That was all.
“But that doesn’t fix the problem, Melanie. Even if I’m free, the camp is still continuing.”
I shook my head and went quiet for a long time, thinking about what she’d said.
Raven stared, waiting for me to address her last words.
“We went back and burned that place to the fucking ground, and it didn’t change anything. I know you want to put an end to it, but you need to understand this is bigger than the two of us. I told you we shouldn’t go back, that we had no chance, but you forced us to do it anyway. We lost our freedom because of it. I’m never going to be able to walk away from Fender at this point, so I need to make the best of it. Yes, I feel something for him, but how can I sleep beside the same man every single night and see his goodness and not feel something?” I paused to take a few breaths, my eyes filled with emotional intensity. “You need to understand there’s nothing we can do. There’s nothing Magnus can do. There’s only one person who can make any difference—and I know he will. He will let you go. He will end that camp. He will walk away from it all.”
Raven stared at me, her eyes skeptical. “And you really believe that?”
I slowly released the breath from my lungs and looked her straight in the eye. “With all my heart.”
Twenty
Make a Woman Cry
Fender
My eyes continued to shift back to the parlor, waiting for Melanie to return to me.
Every moment we were apart, my dread increased.
Unless she was right beside me where I could block her body with mine, the anxiety would deteriorate all the tissues of my heart. I never panicked. I never had anxiety. But she was the one thing that inflicted both of those sensations on me.
Napoleon approached Magnus and conducted a brief conversation.
My brother’s face said it all—he didn’t like the man at all.
No surprise there.
Stasia came next.
I lost interest and looked at the door again, not even bothering to pretend to listen to the guest speaking to me.
Raven stepped out of the room and approached Magnus from the rear, but she must have gotten angry at the sight of them together because she marched off and headed straight to the door.
Good.
But Melanie didn’t come.
Oblivious to Raven’s anger, Magnus continued to speak to Stasia.
Why didn’t Melanie come back to me?
I drew breath with more anxiety. I squeezed my flute until it started to crack. Wordlessly, I excused myself from the conversation I wasn’t participating in and moved past Magnus to the parlor.
She sat there alone, her eyes on her hands in her lap, her posture drooped.
Puffy cheeks. Red eyes. Smeared makeup.
Nothing hurt me more than seeing her like this.
It made me hate Raven more than I already did.
I moved to the seat beside her.
She turned to look at me, flinching slightly because she was so deep in thought that she didn’t know I was in the room until that moment. When she’d assumed it was a stranger, her features had tightened to hide her discomfort. But when she looked at me, her eyes watered again—because she knew she didn’t have to hide from me.
My hand moved into the back of her hair, and I brought her close to me, kissing her tears away, kissing her soft lips, kissing her jawline and neck, erasing her pain with my love. “Ne pleure pas, chérie.” Don’t cry, sweetheart. My hand cupped her cheek as I pulled away and looked at her.
Her eyes were dry now, but the effects of her sadness were still on her features.
I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and placed it in her hand.
The smile she gave was so genuine. I was always there for her—and she knew it. She clenched the tissue in her closed fingertips before she brought it to her face to clean up her tear-stained cheeks.
“Talk to me, chérie.” My entire world collapsed when hers did too. When she was unhappy, I was unhappy. This was a woman who deserved the world, and every time I failed to give that to her, my self-hatred grew.
She sniffled before she wiped her nose. “Raven…” She shook her head and said nothing more.
“You continue to wonder why I hate her. There’s your answer.”
Her arm hooked through mine, and she came closer to me. “She’s a good person. Better than me.”
