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“I met her before I knew you. And I didn’t know who she was or who you were to her. It was a cruel coincidence, but it’s what happened.”
She lets out a dark laugh that’s half-sob. “You could just lie to me, you know.”
“I’m not that cruel.”
Her lip quivers. “Right. But why not? You’re used to being cruel to everyone else. Why not do it to me and just…lie?”
“Contrary to what you may be thinking right now, I actually do care for you.” I scrub a hand over my face, my skin still tingling from Celine’s slap. “I do love you. I’m just not…inlove with you.”
She closes her eyes. A single tear brims on the tips of her eyelash. “Are you in love with her?”
I sigh again. “Yes.”
“So that’s why you refused to sleep with me.”
“Yes.”
“Why we…we never actually married.”
“Yes.”
She nods and opens her eyes. “I spent so many nights jealous of your other woman. If only I knew it was my own sister keeping me awake.”
“She doesn’t deserve your hate. Or your anger. She tried her best to protect you.” I let out a short laugh. “Fucking hell, she fought tooth and nail to protect you.”
“Don’t,” Celine snarls. “You have no right to tell me how to feel about Taylor.” Her eyes glisten with more tears she refuses to let fall. I take a step towards her, my hand reaching out, but she jerks away from me. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair that you get to have a family and I get nothing.”
“You can have everything, Celine,” I tell her. “You just need to make a decision.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
I look her dead in the eye when I speak, only because I really want her to hear me. “Ashton won’t wait around forever. It isn’t fair to ask him to, either.”
She starts to ask how I know, then thinks better of it and falls silent, swallowing back the question and instead just breathing slowly. We stand there for a while. Two ships passing in the night.
“Ilarion…” she says at last. “Thank you.”
Then she walks out.
I watch her go, feeling freer than I have in years.
52
TAYLOR
Holy hell—was this dress always so tight? Or has it shrunk on me in the last few hours?
I’ve just settled on the second answer when I’m hit with a gust of warm air from the balcony doors. I turn in time to see Ilarion shut the door to a side room behind him and beeline straight toward me.
“You can’t be here,” I protest, pressing my back against the balcony railing. We’re so high up. Too high up for this conversation, for this situation. I’m already dizzy as it is. “Please, I’m begging you—just leave me alone.”
Of course, he ignores me. “You look beautiful,tigrionok.”
I don’t allow myself to linger on the compliment. No matter how many butterflies it awakens in me. “Fine. If you won’t leave, I will.”
I try to move around him and retreat back inside, but he snags my arm before I can get far. He pulls me toward him, turning my buffer of safe space into firm body heat, the tidal wave of his cologne, and an ocean of nerves.
“I spoke to Celine.”
