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I pushed my hands into my breeches and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “There was no point.”
She slowly shook her head. “You hadn’t been injured then, so don’t try the self-esteem excuse on me. You were so confident back then, so charismatic. I would have melted into a puddle if you’d shown an interest in me. And you knew it.”
“It’s not that.” I released another sigh. I hadn’t expected to have to tell this part of the story, but since she’d asked… “The Isle of Crow is run by a consortium of families. Mine is one of them. We have… traditions. One of them is that the children of the premier families can only marry within the consortium. We can’t marry anyone outside of it, and that includes anyone on the mainland. It’s a protective measure to keep all the wealth on the island.”
For a second, I thought her skin had paled.
“So, you’re told who you can and can’t marry?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Usually, yes, but… after the incident, it was agreed I wouldn’t be bound to the same rules.”
Her brows knitted together. “Why?”
I focused on her face and not the pain of this admission which still felt like a fresh, open wound. “Because…” The back of my neck began to sweat.The families don’t want to subject their daughters to a freak like me.“After enduring what I did, they thought the least they could do was give me some freedom.”
She stood and limped towards me. When she raised her hand, I didn’t flinch. She could slap me again and it would feel like a kiss. When she stroked her fingertips down the scars on my cheek, I held my breath. “What happened to you, Dax?”
I took her wrist, bringing her fingertips to my lips. “I don’t want you to know.”
Her big eyes looked softly up at me. “Why?”
“I don’t want you to be burdened with it. I want you to go home and live your life.” I pressed a kiss to the pad of her ring finger.
“I’ll be burdened if you don’t tell me.”
I narrowed my eyes on her.
“I care about you, Dax. Ever since we first met, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. I never thought I’d see you again, and now that I have, I want to know everything. I don’t want to lose you again.”
Her words were so determined and her expression so sincere, something inside me cracked. “I’m not going to hurt you, you know.”
She recoiled slightly. “I know.”
“You’re free to go, Rose. You’re not my prisoner anymore.”
“Iknow,” she repeated. “I don’t want to go.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t understand. Why?”
She pressed both palms to the sides of my face. “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve just said? I’ve wanted you since that day in the bookshop. Now that I’ve found you… and after everything we shared last night… I’m not letting you go.”
The crack in my heart widened, letting in a beam of light. “But… my scars.”
“They’re who you are. Just like mine are who I am.” She breathed steadily, still holding my face. “What happened?”
I sucked in a deep breath. I hadn’t told anyone this.
“It was acid. Someone threw a bucket of acid over me.”
Her expression contorted in slow motion. “What? Who would do that?”
The wall of my chest thickened. “That’s not important. You wanted to know what happened. That’s what happened. I was a victim.” I sighed angrily. “It takes a lot for me to admit that.”
Her gaze searched my face, her pupils widening. Her lips were soft and wet. I wanted to slip my tongue between them. Then something else cut through her gentle features. Hatred. Was not for whomever had done this to me? I changed the subject.
“What about your scars? How did you get those?”
She closed her eyes as if retrieving a memory stored in the very depths of her mind. “I was hanging out with a guy who lived close by. It wasn’t long after I met you. My stepfather had moved in and was kind of taking over our lives. I used to hang out at this guy’s house just to get away from it all.”
