“I wonder why she didn’t tell me.”
She rhetorically wonders about her mother’s motives out loud, but I answer anyway. “I don’t know.”
"When did you find out she died?"
"Three months later. June. I saw it on the news and heard them report it as a car accident, due to possible mechanical failure." I can still picture the headline and the photo they used. Lila was smiling at some political event, vibrant and alive, with the senator and a younger Peyton posing beside her. “Something about it didn’t sit right with my spirit, but I still didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle and wasn’t in the mood to solve a mystery. By then, I decided to stay in Manhattan and never return to Wintervale.”
Peyton's crying now, silent tears streaming down her face. “So…when Silas asked you to come home and protect me, did you know who I was?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then why keep it secret, Blake? Your one rule was honesty, and you broke it with me. I could tell something was wrong by the way you kept running from me the moment we got too close..”
“I suppose the only answer to why is that I'm a selfish bastard who wanted you to look at me the way you did on that terrace, like I was someone worth trusting. Someone who could actually protect you instead of failing you like I failed her." I move closer, caging her body in with mine against the glass. "And because the longer I waited, the harder it got to confess. Every day that passed, every moment we got closer, made the secret heavier. Until it felt impossible to tell you without losing you."
"Secrets like that always come out."
"I know." I stop, force myself to be completely honest. “But I wanted more time. More moments where you looked at me like I was the best thing that ever happened to you. Where you chose me instead of running from me. I was greedy for it, Peyton. Greedy for you."
She's been quiet for so long, I think she's done, that this is where she tells me she can’t do it, and we're finished. Then she asks, "When did it change? When did protecting me stop being about guilt and start being about something else?"
"The moment I saw you on that terrace in that red dress, looking at the stars like you were planning to steal them. Silas wanted me to protect you, and I knew there must have been some ulterior motive on his part, but I just didn’t know what it was or care until I saw you. Then I thought 'I'm fucked’ because I knew right then that I was going to fall for you and that it was going to destroy everything.”
"But you did it anyway."
“Even knowing I didn't deserve you, I couldn't walk away." I place my mouth close to her ear, half-expecting her to yank it away. She doesn't. "Every moment with you has been selfish. Every kiss, every conversation, every time I told myself I was protecting you—I was really just stealing more time."
"Blake.”
"I'm not asking for forgiveness because you’re right, I broke my own rules. But I need you to know that what I feel for you is real. It's not guilt. It's not an obligation. It's not me trying to make up for failing your mother." I turn her around to face me, desperate for her to believe this if nothing else. "I love you. The way you challenge everyone, the way you refuse to be controlled, the way you walked into a burning building to save me, even after you learned I'd betrayed you. The way you taste. The way you glow when you come for me. I love all of it."
"My mother went to you for a reason.” Peyton's looking at me with an expression I can't read. Hurt, anger, and something that might finally be understanding. “She saw something in you and Blake? She was right. I love you too.”
The words break something in me. Three years of guilt, of self-loathing, of running, and it cracks under the weight of Peyton's forgiveness. My savage heart has been healed, and I owe it all to her.
"I don't deserve you," I say roughly.
"Probably not." She's smiling through her tears now, then kisses me softly, and it tastes like salt mixed with forgiveness. "But Blake? No more secrets. Ever. If we're doing this, really doing this, it has to be built on complete honesty even when it's hard. Even when you think the truth will hurt me."
“Understood.”
"Good." She pulls back slightly. “Now let’s bring in Christmas the right way.”
I kiss her properly this time, pouring everything I feel into it, which is gratitude, relief, and a love so fierce it terrifies me. She responds with equal intensity, hands fisting in my ruined shirt, pulling me closer despite my injuries.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.
“You should probably take more pain medication, and then we should both shower because we smell like a bonfire."
I pop a Vicodin and start stripping.
“That sounds like a perfect fucking idea.”
“Uh-uh, sexy. Don’t get any ideas. You’re taking a shower for one.”
An hour later, we've both showered separately, though it took willpower I barely have. It feels like I haven’t been inside Peyton in weeks when it’s barely been 24 hours. We’re both in plush, white Wintervale Grand robes, eating the Christmas breakfast Talia arranged to be sent to our room: coffee, pastries, fruit. Simple but good.
"What happens now?" Peyton asks, curled up on the bed with her coffee. "With Edmund, with the inheritance, with all of it?"
