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“You would do that for me?” I ask.
“I don’t hate you, Kai. And I abhor what I put you through. Now I just want to protect you. Give you back your life.”
I bite my lip as I stare at the ring.
“And I know you don’t believe me, but I want to win as much to protect you from this life as to win myself,” he says.
I believe him.
I should let him win.
It’s what’s for the best. But I won’t. I want to win. I want to destroy him for the pain he caused me.
“Thank you, but I can only accept the ring for as long as we are fake married. It means too much to you.”
“No, you’ll keep it.”
“I could never sell it.”
His eyes darken. “Then I’ll sell it for you. This is the only way I can protect you. Take it.”
I won’t promise him I’ll sell it because I won’t. Not because I’m not above handouts. Enzo owes me a lot. But I won’t use his mother to hurt him.
We are as even as possible—this gesture for his world to see me as his equal and of giving me security afterward.
“Are you going to make me put the ring on myself?” I ask.
His eyes widen at my offer to let him touch me.
He takes the box and removes the ring.
“My heart belongs to the devil,” he says reading the inscription on the inside of the ring.
It seems fitting if his mother loved his father.
“You will never get my heart. Nothing more than my captivity I lost in a game, which I will soon win back.”
Enzo swallows, and I watch his throat bob. He doesn’t agree nor disagree with me.
I hold out my hand, waiting.
I push down the anxiety, and then I feel his touch on my hand. My cold interior instantly warms. I feel calm, secure, safe.
Not loved. That’s not what this is. We are both too broken to ever experience such a thing.
But it’s different—a sense of trust between us, even though we’ve both lied and will continue to lie to each other.
The lies are to protect each other.
To help each other.
To keep each other safe.
Enzo pushes his mother’s ring onto my finger.
And somehow, I think this is the closest I will ever get to being married.
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