AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Because if I was,’ Annabel went on as if Glory hadn’t spoken. ‘You would have told me the truth. You wouldn’t have felt you had to lie.’
Glory stared at her. Because it wasn’t an accusation. It sounded more like...regret. And it was on the tip of her tongue to tell Annabel that she’d lied to save her worry, but that would be doing both of them a disservice.
She wasn’t a child any more. She wasn’t the little sister Annabel had to look after. She was an adult and she could handle the truth. If anything, Castor had shown her that.
‘I’m sorry I lied,’ Glory said at last. ‘I didn’t want you to talk me out of it and I...didn’t want to be treated like a child. As if I can’t be trusted to make my own decisions.’
Annabel shook her head. ‘Oh, Glor... I never meant... It wasn’t...’ She trailed off. ‘All I wanted to do—all Ieverwanted to do—was protect you. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Glory said. ‘And all I ever wanted to do was to save you from worry.’
For a long moment the two of them looked at each other. Then Annabel crossed the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Glory, giving her a giant hug. ‘I’m so sorry he left,’ she murmured as Glory hugged her back. ‘For what it’s worth, he’s an idiot to walk away.’
A tension Glory hadn’t even known she was feeling gradually ebbed. ‘He had his reasons.’
Annabel released her, then stepped back. ‘Why didn’t you go after him?’
Glory sighed. ‘I...couldn’t.’
‘Why not?’ And then suddenly something fierce glowed in her sister’s gaze. ‘You love him, don’t you?’
Glory swallowed. ‘Well, yes...’
You know why you didn’t go after him.
Oh, she did. And it wasn’t so much a realisation as an admission.
She’d let him go. She hadn’t stopped him from getting out of the limo and she hadn’t gone after him the next day. She hadn’t made any attempt to contact him afterwards; she’d simply drifted around Paris in a devastated fashion trying to pull herself together enough to get home.
And now she was home. Back in her old apartment, ready to resume her old life. Was that all there was? Was that what she was doomed to? Watching her sister finally get what she wanted, while she sat behind the counter with no dreams and no plans. Never allowing herself to think of all the thingsshewanted.
Because you never thought you deserved them. Because you never thought you were good enough for them.
It was true. And as Glory stared sightlessly at her sister, all she could think about was the time she’d had with Castor and all the things he’d showed her, the big wide world outside her narrow LA existence. A world she’d never thought would be within reach of a girl like her.
Yet she’d not only reached for it, she’d held it in her hands.
A world with Castor in it.
A world where she was good enough for him.
Glory took a ragged breath, pain curling around her heart. Pain because she hadn’t held on to that world, she’d let it go. She’d been afraid and hurt, and so it was easier to open her fingers and release it, than to stay and fight for it.
Like Annabel had stayed and fought for her, even when things had been hard.
Like Castor had fought for his sister too, even through his grief.
Because that was love, wasn’t it? It wasn’t turning tail and running when things got hard; it was digging in and staying despite it.
Because it was worth it.
He was worth it.
Something rippled through her, a powerful wave of emotion, the same kind of emotion that had propelled her into Castor’s mansion that first night a couple of months earlier.
She couldn’t stay here, safe in her little world. She had to find the courage of her own convictions. She had to fight for the world she wanted, a world with Castor Xenakis in it, and she couldn’t let him push her away.
She’d never ask him to give up his mission, never ask him to put her before his sister, but she needed him to know she was there. And she’d be there for him whenever he wanted her, and if he never did, then that was fine too.
