AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Yes, apparently so. This was goodbye.
Her eyes prickled, her throat closing.
You always knew that this wasn’t real, that it was only temporary.
Yes, and she’d told herself so many times these past two weeks. But all of that hadn’t helped her prepare for the moment when it would all end. And now that moment was here it was every bit as painful and terrible as she thought it would be.
Why are you so upset?
Oh, she knew why. She knew down to her soul. She wasn’t falling for Castor Xenakis, she’d already fallen, hard and fast and irrevocably.
She was in love with him and she didn’t know what to do about it.
‘We can’t...we can’t have another week?’ she asked, hating how desperate she sounded, yet unable to stop herself from asking.
Castor’s gaze flickered, then he shook his head slowly. ‘No,mikri alepou, I’m afraid that will not be happening.’ Slowly, he sat up, his gaze unwavering. ‘You’re right though. This is where we part ways.’
She didn’t want to be needy, didn’t want to demand things of him that he couldn’t give her, because as she’d told herself time and time again, she didn’t have the right.
Yet she couldn’t stop the words from coming out. ‘What about another few days? Surely that’s okay?’
‘That will only be putting off the inevitable.’ He let out a breath. ‘This was never going to be real, Glory, I told you that. And it can’t be, understand?’
She swallowed, her throat suddenly thick. ‘Why not? Why can’t it be real?’
The cold mask that had settled over his features rippled, revealing what lay underneath, that bleak expression and a rawness that made her chest feel like it was full of broken glass.
‘Because I can’t,’ he said, suddenly fierce. ‘Because it’s too dangerous for you, and now that you’re my wife, you’ll be put in harm’s way.’
‘But I’m already in harm’s way,’ she said a little desperately. ‘And you have a lot of security. And I don’t mind—’
‘You might not, but I do.’ His gaze burned as he stared at her. ‘Ican’t do it, Glory.Ican’t let anything happen to you. You’re too important to me already and you shouldn’t be. You’re a threat to my mission and I can’t allow that to continue.’
Shock stole her breath. ‘A threat? What are you talking about?’
His expression shifted for a moment, became softer, warmer. ‘Mikri alepou, you have no idea what the past two weeks have meant and how much I’ve enjoyed being with you. It was a...respite for me. Some time out from reality and I needed it. But I have a mission to get back to and I can’t be effective if I’m worrying about someone. If I’m afraid for someone.’
She understood. She understood all too well. She was a burden to him, an obstacle preventing him from doing what he needed to do, the way she’d been with Annabel.
Seriously? So that’s it? You’re not even going to protest?
But how could she protest? How could she demand that he consider her feelings? He was trying to save people and she wasn’t more important than all of them. She wasn’t more important to his mission.
‘I...get it,’ she said huskily, her chest aching. ‘I really do. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of what you’re doing.’
The warmth drained slowly from his expression, the lines of his face hardening once again. ‘I have to do this, Glory. You understand that, don’t you?’
She wasn’t sure why he seemed to think she was arguing with him. ‘Of course I understand.’
‘It’s for Ismena’s sake.’ Gold glittered in his eyes. ‘It was my fault that night. I was the one who took her out and all because I wanted to talk to some girl. Because I put my own needs first.’ A muscle jumped in the side of his jaw. ‘I shouldn’t have. I should have been watching out for her. I should have protected her. And I didn’t.’
The broken glass in Glory’s chest shifted around, cutting into her. There was so much pain in his beautiful voice, so much self-recrimination, that she forgot her own hurt, leaning across the space between them and reaching for his hand, taking it in hers.
‘Stop punishing yourself, Castor,’ she said thickly. ‘Please, stop.’
He went still, his gaze flaring. ‘Glory...’
‘Don’t think I can’t see it,’ she went on, because now the words were out she had to keep going. ‘You were fifteen. You were a child. How were you to know what was going to happen? You couldn’t have predicted—’
