Tears well in my eyes again, and I blink them away. “I agree with you.”
He lifts his head, fixing me with a look of so much raw emotion that I could hardly put a name to it. Sadness and love and fear and admiration all rolled into something beautiful and heartbreaking. “But not like this.” He gestures between us, and each breath he takes seems to tuck away more and more of that emotion leaving him vulnerable until he is the man I first met. Nothing but calm confidence that reminds me so much of Derek. “Freya, I can’t let you do this.”
I barely breathe as I stand there in the moonlight. “I made my choice, Markham. I gave you a promise.”
“Then let me be the one to break it. This is not a sacrifice I can allow when you and I both know you don’t want to be married to me.”
“You are a good man,” I say, needing him to know that. “And you would be a good husband.”
“I think so too.” He smiles, then shakes his head. “But not yours. Your heart belongs to someone else, Freya, and I won’t get in the way of that.”
“You are making this too easy,” I complain. Not that I want him to make it difficult, but do I really deserve his kindness after everything?
Chuckling, he steps forward and presses a kiss to my forehead, leaving me feeling entirely inadequate because he has never been anything butgood. “Friends?”
I brush a tear from my cheek, wishing I had been stronger. “Of course.” Though he turns to go back inside, I call his name to stop him. “No matter what happens in the election, Candora needs you.”
With a smile and a soft, “Maybe,” he continues on his way to the stairs, offering Elliot a small nod and a few muttered words as he passes.
Elliot and I both watch him go, and when Markham disappears, Elliot turns to me with his eyes full of questions. He looks the part of a soldier right now, his arms clasped behind his back and his shoulders taut, and I wonder if a part of himwantsto go back to the Army. His brothers-in-arms are there—his family—and I have often thought his talents are wasted on looking after a stubborn princess like me. He carries pain from the loss of his friend, but I have caused him pain here too.
Wrapping my arms around myself as the night air cools my skin, I search for something to say. This is harder than it was with Markham, and I don’t know how this conversation is going to end.
“What happened with you and Derek?” I ask, and though my voice is too quiet for him to hear me from this distance, he seems to read my question easily enough.
A smile lifts the corner of his mouth, catching me off guard. With a quick glance at the empty grounds, he comes toward me. Each step makes my heart beat faster and leaves me desperate to tell him how things ended with Markham.
He speaks before I can, stopping at least a meter away from me. Farther than I would like. “Hot Scoopposted a story this morning and hinted that I might not be as alone as I thought when it comes to my family.”
“Hot Scoophints at a lot of things.” More confused than anything, I step forward to close some of the space between us. He doesn’t stop me, so I take another step. “Besides, you are not alone. Your cousin is right inside.” I wave toward the house.
Elliot catches my hand mid-wave, and he seems to relax as he curls his fingers around mine. “According toHot Scoop, I have a brother.”
Though my stomach twists, I remind myself of all the lies the silly tabloid has claimed to be true. “Oh?”
His smile grows. “According to the blood test Derek and I took earlier today,Hot Scoopis right. Well, half right.”
“I don’t understand,” I admit, in part because his smile is becoming rather distracting. “You have a half-brother? But who…” The rest of what he said hits me all at once, and my jaw drops. “Derek? But how didHot Scoop—”
“I’m happy to tell you everything, Rapunzel.” His voice drops lower, almost into a growl, as he tugs me closer and says, “But do you really want to talk about Derek right now?”
A shiver runs through me from the way he’s looking at me. “No,” I say, breathless. “No, we have much more important things to discuss.” Movement on the terrace catches my eye, and I realize everyone is coming outside to release the ceremonial lanterns into the sky. Any of them could look down to the lake and see us, and that is the last thing I want. Gripping Elliot’s hand, I start pulling him down the shoreline toward one of my favorite places in Stonemere. “But not here.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Elliot
Ihavenoideawhere we’re going, but it’s really hard to care when Freya keeps a tight hold on my hand as she leads the way down a moonlit gravel path that follows the lakeshore. While I’m doing my best not to get my hopes up until I have solid evidence that things are going the way I hope, Grimstad’s parting words to me as he walked by held a lot of implications.
“Take care of her.”
I’m her bodyguard, so he could have been telling me to do my job. But Grimstad knows he doesn’t need to tell me that; I have a bullet wound to match his, proving I’m pretty committed to my post.
When we reach a thicket of trees on the far edge of the grounds, Freya takes a sharp right toward the lake, nearly pulling me off balance from the sudden change in direction. I can’t see much as the moon disappearsthrough the leaves, but my feet hit wood only moments before the trees open up to reveal a long dock stretching out over the water.
Dropping my hand, Freya stops at the dock’s edge, and a quick glance back tells me the trees are dense enough to block us from view of the house. Another good sign, but I still refuse to jump to conclusions.
I was so certain that Freya would step onto that stage inside and confidently tell the world that she was making the mistake of marrying a man she didn’t love. I was wrong about her not changing her mind, and if I’m wrong about this too, I’m not sure I’ll make it out the other side.
