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My eyes shot to hers as I dropped my hand. “What...what are you saying?”
Fuck, she wouldn’t tell Jack that...would she?
“Are you...are you threatening me?” I breathed coldly.
“I’m saying you’ve already come inside me and...” She suddenly sighed and looked at the exposed rafter and plywood ceiling. “God, I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Like I said, tempers are high. We should calm down before we do something rash.” Stepping into her, I tried to wrap her in a hug, but she backed away from me.
I sighed heavily. “Let’s just go for a swim and—”
“Just tell me one thing.” Looking up, she snared my eyes with hers. “One thing and I’ll leave you alone. I know I need to sleep this off. I’ll feel better in the morning, and I’ll be mortified for how I’ve acted, but...I can’t help feeling that something is wrong. A shadow that I can’t banish until I hear from you that I’m imagining it.”
My stomach churned, terrified of what her question would be. I nodded despite myself, needing to give her comfort when all I’d done was cause her pain. “Ask and I’ll be honest.”
“Did you want this, us, to happen?”
I winced, not prepared for such a direct, agonising question.
“Did you want to be with me, Aslan, or did you make a mistake kissing me at the Craypot that night?”
I froze.
I scrambled for the truth.
How could I tell her that I’d just been stopped by the police for a routine breath test and had come face-to-face with my terror of law enforcement and deportation? The thought of never seeing her again had done things to me I hadn’t even acknowledged. And then I’d driven to her as a free man (for as long as that lasted) and watched her being hit on. And the moment she touched me, the moment she called me hers...all the fear I had of being taken and all the horror I had at her falling for someone else became a war I couldn’t fight.
I’d tried to stop myself.
Even as I went to kiss her, my head had been screaming not to.
But my heart and body had taken the reins, and when our lips touched...that was it. That was it for the rest of my godforsaken life.
Stepping away from me, she shook her head with a soft gasp. “It was, wasn’t it? A mistake?”
“It’s not what you think. I never meant to kiss you, but it happened and—”
“And you wish it never did so my parents would never have to know.”
“Stop putting words in my mouth. It was a mistake, Neri. I admit that. It was a mistake because I couldn’t fight how I felt...I couldn’t fight you anymore. But I don’t regret it. Not for a single moment. I should. I should hate that I couldn’t stop myself. By falling for you, I’ve condemned you to a life of misery.”
I grabbed her elbows, holding her as she tried to escape. “If I get deported, that’s it for us. There is no happy ending where you live in Turkey with me, do you understand? There are no second chances. This is our one chance. Here. In this country. And it fucking petrifies me because you’re so brave and willing to fight for me, but you can’t. I forbid it. You can’t get your family tangled in the mess that I brought to your door, do you hear me? The only way we can have this is by staying hidden. I want to keep you, Nerida. But every damn day, I’m so incredibly aware of how easy it would be to lose you. How easily I could hurt you. How easily I could destroy you. And...that kills me because as much as I want you to love me as deeply as I love you, I’m only sentencing you to a worse fate the moment I’m caught and—”
“So you’re saying all this—all this sneaking around and refusing to tell my parents—is for my sake...not yours?”
“No, I’m saying—”
“That you would change what happened, if you could.”
“What? No. That isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” Her nostrils flared as her gaze turned to a raging blizzard. “Look me in the eye and tell me that if you had the choice, if you had the self-control not to kiss me that night, you wouldn’t have.”
“Neri...I—”
“Tell me. Tell me the truth because that’s the only truth I can see. You speak of love and forever, Aslan, but really, you’re just waiting for reality to swoop in and steal everything. Just like what happened with your family. You expect that to happen again. You keep thinking I’m going to end up like them—”
“You will end up like them,” I roared, shaking her and digging my fingers into her arms. “If I die, I’ll take all the good pieces of you with me, Nerida, and I can’t...I can’t stomach that. I can’t be responsible for making you feel the way I do every damn day. Feeling so lost and black and afraid.”
