But now, he might still be out there…
She shot to her feet, chair scraping back.
“Aurelia?”
She could survive him not loving her. God help her, she had been surviving it—had survived being unwanted her entire life. She knew that pain. She could endure it.
But she could not survive losing him.
Not to a storm. Not to that lighthouse. Not when the last words between them had been angry and afraid and wrong.
Not when she loved him so desperately it felt like dying.
“I have to—” Her voice broke.
If something happened to him all because they had argued and he had left the house, she would never forgive herself. She couldn’t bear it. Shewouldn’t.
“I have to go,” she breathed.
Mary Ann frowned. “Go where?”
“To my husband.”
She hastened out of the room. The servants were still unpacking her things, taking them to a spare room, as directed by Mary Ann’s housekeeper. Aurelia paused only long enough to take a coat, then she barreled out of the door, rain lashing her face like tiny whips, stinging her eyes until she could barely see.
But still, she ran.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sebastian leaned against the rough stone of the lighthouse. Above him, the sky raged. Lightning and thunder vied for prominence, and the wind howled. Seagulls wheeled above him, but even they looked as though they strained against the gale.
Had he been standing, it might well have ripped him from his seat.
As it was, he had a first-hand view of the sea in all its otherworldly magnificence.
This was what Catherine must have seen. Standing at this lighthouse while the storm raged, while the world tore itself apart around her. He understood now why she had come here. Why this place had called to her when the pain became too much.
He was not going to jump. That answer was not his, would never be his. But there was a circularity to his presence here, in the height of a storm, that brought him peace, in a bittersweet way. The wind trying to shove him toward the edge. The rain like needles. The sea below, wild and hungry.
Her death was not his fault.
The realization settled into his bones with quiet certainty. He had made mistakes, yes. Been cold when she needed warmth, absent when she needed him present. But Catherine had made her own choice that night. Just as he was making his now.
And it was most certainly not out of some twisted bitterness over the woman heloved…
The truth hit him so hard heactuallylaughed. The sound ripped out of him, half-mad, and he fell backward onto the wet grass.
Of course he loved her! How could he possibly not?
Aurelia, with her sharp tongue and sharper mind.Aurelia, who had been the first to glimpse his broken pieces and stayed anyway. Who had made his cold house feel like a home. Who had burrowed so deep into his chest, he could not imagine drawing breath without her.
God, he loved her. The force of it was staggering.
He could sit here in this storm and survive it. He could walk back down these cliffs and live with his mistakes, his failures, his guilt. He could be the man she deserved instead of the coward he had been.
He would be that man. Forher.
For the rest of his days, he would make sure all she knew was how it felt to bechosen.
