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TAYLOR
“I want Grandpa,” Adam pouts.
My chest feels like someone sat on it all night. “I know, sweetheart, but I told you, Grandpa’s gone away for a few days. He had some important work to do.”
“What important work?” Adam asks, peering at me suspiciously. “I don’t believe you.” Scowling, he turns and scampers further into the garden.
“Adam!” I call after him. “Adam! Don’t go too far, honey!”
He doesn’t listen. He seems to want to put as much space between us as possible. He’s not the only one in this house who feels that way.
Not that I can blame them.
Sighing, I trudge after my son all the way down to the fence along the southern boundary. But when I finally catch up to him, I realize that he’s talking to someone.
I turn the corner and stop short. Celine is sitting on a blanket beneath the shade of a willow tree. She’s wearing blue linen shorts and a cotton blouse, bare-footed and bare-faced. Gone are the jewels and the gowns I’ve gotten used to seeing her in. Even her hair is simple and free over her shoulders.
It’s like turning the clock ten years into the past.
I know she sees me, but she doesn’t acknowledge me. Instead, she picks up an apple from her basket and hands it to Adam. “There’s more where that came from,” she says, giving him a little wink.
“Thanks, Auntie Cee,” Adam gushes, grabbing the apple and biting into it before he turns away.
“Stay where I can see you, okay?” Celine calls.
I probably should leave her to her solitude, but it feels as though the more room I give her, the more room I’m leaving for our relationship to fracture further.
“Celine.” She jerks her head in my general direction, but she doesn’t make eye contact. I figure that’s as good as it’s going to get. “I want you to know that I’ve started looking for places. I’m hoping to move by the end of the week.”
That seems to grab her attention. She turns to me with a frown drawing her forehead into deep furrows. “Why?”
“Why? Why what?”
“Why would you leave this house? It’s more yours than mine.”
“No, it’s not,” I say adamantly. “This has been your home for years.”
“It’s been a sanctuary more than anything,” she says with a sigh. Her defenses are gradually lowering, one brick at a time. Again, it’s all I can and should hope for. “A place where I was safe from Benedict and his thugs. But now, I’d rather take my chances with him.”
“Cee—"
She holds up one hand to shut me up. “I’m not looking for sympathy or apologies. I stayed longer than I should have. It took yesterday to make me see it. I’m serious about leaving, Tay. I’m serious about ending whatever relationship the world thought Ilarion and I had.”
“I’m not asking you to reconsider. I’m just saying that I have to go, too.”
“Why would you do that?” she asks with a skeptical scowl. “When you love him and he loves you?”
“Because you have feelings for him. And…and you had a claim to him first.”
Her frown irons out for a moment. Then she exhales deeply. “Tay, don’t do this. Don’t do that thing you do—”
“What?”
“Your circular logic. Every time you’re stuck facing a reality you don’t want to face, you start sounding like a broken record. And you keep spinning and spinning no matter how bad it sounds.”
“But he’s your—"
“Have you not been paying attention?” Celine cuts in with a disbelieving laugh. “We were never married.He’s more like a brother to me than anything else. We’re friends and we’re close, but he’s been giving me the same kind of love he’d give me ifyoumarried him.”
