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“Why did you leave?” she asked.
He furrowed his brows, not wanting to discount her right to want to know, but still feeling like she was adding strands of questioning to keep him from getting a straight answer out of her. Was she this unaware of why his father wanted him to be the one to take over the family business, even though he himself wanted nothing to do with it?
“I’ll tell you all about it,” he promised. “When you’ve told me that Nikolai has no hold over you.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Is that what you want to hear? I still have feelings for him, all right? Happy with that? I really didn’t want to have this discussion tonight, of all nights.”
He was surprised at how sharply her words stung. He felt as though she’d taken a blade to his skin, slicing him all over. It was the last thing he’d expected her to say, the very last. She’d been on edge all evening, but it hadn’t seemed as though it was from the arousal of any kind.
“What exactly are you saying?” he asked.
“I’m saying that this relationship is a convenience. Right? We’re both here out of obligation. That’s it. You didn’tchooseme to be your mate—your father chose. Well, I didn’tchooseyou either. And if there’d been any other way…” She trailed off, eyes round, tears building. She finished, calmer than before, “We both would’ve preferred it.”
She wasn’t wrong. But she wasn’t entirely right either. He’d felt a certain destiny in the air, standing next to her in that circle. Her hands had rested in his, palm to palm, and the memory of one time when he dropped her off after school had appeared unbidden in his mind. How she’d given him a broad smile, had made him laugh, he couldn’t remember about what. She’d slapped his arm when they got out of the car. Their childhood closeness had been severed by their teenage years by then, but that afternoon had felt like old times. It had been right before he left for college. And he’d wondered, briefly, what she’d have done if he'd pulled her close and kissed her goodbye.
“Why are you lying to me?” he asked.
“Oh, my god!” she exclaimed. “Please, just leave it.”
And there it was. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to admit it—it was that she couldn’t. He could see it on her now. She was fucking terrified.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he stated, and he meant it with every fiber of his being. “I swear it.”
She scoffed, wrapping her arms around her waist, taking her gaze from his to glare at the floor.
“Why didn’t you stay?” she repeated, voice lowered. “What happened?”
He hesitated but felt he owed her an olive branch.
“I saw the truth,” he said.
“And now that you’re back in again?” she asked. “Now what’re you going to do with that truth? Fight the system they’ve worked so hard to put in place? Destroy this well-oiled machinery that keeps the money coming in? They’llkillyou.”
“What does Nikolai have on you?” he pressed, not wanting to lose himself in her worry. “Tell me, and I’ll deal with it.”
She shook her head, tears spilling over, though she mostly looked sullen, refusing to meet his gaze again. It was a bad habit of hers, he was realizing.
“You can’t ‘deal with it’,” she said.
“I can, and I will,” he disagreed. “What does he have?”
“All he has is a lie,” she said. “And I can’t disprove it. So please, stop asking. Letmedeal with it.”
“What does he want?”
She finally raised her gaze to his, reaching up to wipe away the tears tracing themselves down her cheeks. She straightened her posture, her entire demeanor changing as she visibly collected herself. He wondered fleetingly what she’d experienced in her life that would make her able to do that with such grace.
“I’m sorry I lied,” she said.
“Anna, please,” he said as she walked past him into the bedroom. “Include me in this. We’ll be stronger together.”
He grasped her hand, made her stop, but she pulled it out of his grasp.
“You broke my heart, you know,” she said. “I sent you that stupid note and what did you do? You didn’t even respond to it.”
“I was just a kid. We were both just kids. I was an idiot back then,” he tried, wishing he could find the right words to make her listen, make her truly hear him. “I was an immature ass,” he added. The glimmer of a smile in her eyes gave him hope that he was succeeding, that whatever armor she had brought around herself in that bathroom would begin to crack. “Please,” he repeated. “That note meant a lot to me. I just… I couldn’t. If I’d responded, it would’ve been the same as going back. All I could see…”
She observed him, then sighed softly.
