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The waver in her voice as she pauses before those next words has me closing the gap between us in one lightning step. And I grasp the back of her neck with one hand, pressing my lips to her forehead with the other.
“Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t you fucking dare.”
She freezes in my grasp.
“Breathe,” I whisper against her skin, my lips still against her forehead.
She relaxes enough for her body to sink a little closer to mine.
I keep my hand on the back of her neck, my thumb curled round to monitor her pulse.
It’s racing.
“Breathe,” I repeat.
I hold her as she uncurls her arms between us and rests her hands on my chest. She takes in shaky breaths as I slide my other hand around her waist and flatten my palm against her lower back.
And I hold her like that, in the silence of the cottage, the two of us, both broken in our own ways, until her heart rate slows and her breathing calms.
I let my eyes fall closed as I drink in her scent. Commit it to memory for later. For when I’m alone and can let my imagination run wild.
“You are so much more than that. You’re not the mistakes you’ve made. You’re not responsible for the mistakes he made, either. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”
I press a kiss to her forehead. It’s a habit. I’ve always done it to Jasmin if she’s ever upset.
Only, this is Rose.
“They don’t,” she says, her voice faint. “They don’t. It’smewho tells me. It’s why my family wanted me to come here. They say it’s all me. That I need to forgive myself.” Her voice drops again, and if I weren’t so close with my body pressed to hers, then I would miss the words. “Some days I can’t even look at myself in the mirror. I just see the cause of so much pain.”
I slide my lips from her skin, dipping my head so our foreheads almost touch.
“Look at me.”
She presses her lips together, keeping her eyes down.
“Look at me,” I urge softly.
Slowly she lifts her gaze to mine, looking up at me through dark lashes. Her eyes are dry, but they’re glassy, and fuck if my heart doesn’t die right here. The heart I wonder if I have. Only, I must. Because the pain in my chest at the hopelessness in her eyes is like a dagger slicing through it.
“You are beautiful. Exactly as you are. We all make mistakes. I’ve made a fuck ton.”
She gives me a small smile, and I shake my head gently.
“But they’re gone. They’re done. Don’t waste breath trying to change something you can’t. Use it to do things differently from now on.”
I return her small smile as she sniffs and nods at me. “Yeah. I guess.”
“I want you to look in the mirror and see what your family see. What I see.”
“What’s that?” Her breath mixes with mine as our lips hover inches apart.
“Someone worth saving.”
I squeeze the back of her neck gently and kiss her forehead again before letting her go and turning to open the door before I do something else. Something my body is screaming for, but my mind is holding me back from.
She isn’t mine to touch. She isn’t mine to kiss. She isn’t mine to taint and ruin with my life and all its ugliness.
And it needs to stay that way.
