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Once I remembered how to breathe, I headed over to her, realizing she was trying to get a coffee mug, but it was too high for her to reach.
Her little sigh of frustration was just this side of adorable, and I came up behind her, reaching over her head?—
Serenity yelped, and she flinched so hard she stumbled back a few steps and into the adjacent counter, hissing at the sharp contact her body made with it.
Her blue eyes were like saucers as her chest heaved.
I held the coffee mug she’d been reaching for in my hand, my other hand raised to show her I wasn't trying to touch her.
“I was just getting this for you,” I said in the softest tone I was capable of. I gently set the coffee mug on the counter and then backed away a few paces.
Serenity clenched her eyes shut, shaking her head before nodding to herself and focusing on me again.
“Sorry,” she said, her voice cracking.
Rage overtook me, and I had the sudden urge to hunt Doyle down and bash his head in. The way Serenity had just reacted told me everything I needed to know. Confirmed every suspicion I previously had and hoped to fuck wasn't true.
The emotional and clearly physical abuse ran deep, and it made me want to destroy the next O'Brien I laid eyes on.
“You never have to apologize to me,” I said. “I want to keep you safe. That's all I want.”
She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “I’ve been thinking about that. About the best way to keep me safe.”
“And?”
“And it's the one thing you're refusing to do.”
I couldn't help but smile just a little.
She was more courageous than she even knew.
“You have to consummate this marriage,” she said, like I didn’t know what she was referring to.
Slowly, I spanned the distance between us, and she didn't lose my gaze as I came closer. So close that all it would take was one touch and I could have her against me.
“You keep offering yourself up like that without realizing it won’t save you in the end. What I'm trying to do is ensure that you'll be safe and in control of your life and your future before we annul this.”
A little fear trickled into her eyes.
Good, she should be afraid of me—not in the physical sense because she knows I’d never hurt her, but in the sense that she wasn’t really prepared to intertwine herself in my life like she kept asking.
“Maybe you're the one who's afraid,” she said, and I cocked a brow at her. She gave me a little shrug. “Maybe you're afraid that you'll cross that line and won't be able to come back from it.”
Jesus, this woman. How could she see through me so easily? She barely even knew me.
“I'd ruin you,” I said. “If I gave you what you wanted, it might protect you for a little bit, but it would ruin you in all other ways that mattered.”
Because she was good. She deserved someone who was wholly and unquestionably good. Someone who would take her to farmers markets, not family meetings or places she could become a target just for being attached to me.
I may have gone legitimate for the last few years, but I had a sordid history and a tumultuous life that constantly threatened to bleed through the seams of the future I'd created. Tying her to me even in this way put her at risk, but if we went all in?
There really would be no going back.
“That's the funny thing about all this,” she said, reaching for the mug, pouring herself a big cup of coffee and walking past me.
“What is?” I finally asked.
“I'm already ruined,” she said. “There's nothing you could do that would make my life any worse.” She held my gaze as she took a sip of the hot coffee, then turned on her bare feet and walked down the hallway. Her words lingered for far longer than they should’ve.
