I hesitate. “He loved her, didn’t he?”
Mary sighs, slow and long. “Loved her? Oh yeah. With everything he had left. Which wasn’t much, mind you. Darius... he was already cracked when she came along. She tried to piece him back together. But some things aren’t meant to be fixed.”
I want to ask what happened. I want to ask if the journal is true, if he really… “Did he kill her?”
Mary doesn’t answer right away. Her fingers still on the hem of a pillowcase. Her mouth tightens, and her shoulders lift like she’s bracing for a storm.
“She died,” she says finally. “And he was there. That’s all I’ll say.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, it isn’t.”
There’s something in Mary’s face that I haven’t seen before—fear, maybe, or memory. A flicker of the past that still shadows her now. And suddenly, I don’t want to know more. I don’t want to ask. I want to run.
So I do.
I retreat to my room, the journal burning in my hands, and sit on the edge of the bed, heart hammering. I think of the kiss, of the way his breath stuttered like it was the first time he’d dared to hope again. I think of the way he bolted, wild and undone, like he was terrified of what he could become. And I wonder, what if he didn’t kill her?
What if the story is more complicated?
What if... loving me terrifies him because he thinks he’ll make the same mistake twice?
I don’t sleep. I lie awake staring at the ceiling, listening to the creaks of the old house, the shifting of wind, and the flutter of pages from a book still open beside me.
I don’t leave, either.
Because something tells me that running now would be a mistake. That this man—this complicated, haunted, beautifully broken man—deserves someone who stays.
Even when it’s hard.
14
DARIUS
Ihear her moving through the halls again—light, careful steps, the kind a person takes when they’re trying not to be heard but aren’t afraid to be caught either. That subtle grace, that warmth she carries like a shawl around her shoulders, it hums through the house now like a heartbeat. I stay in the study, rooted to this damn chair like I’ve turned to stone, staring into the low embers of a fire that’s as restless as my thoughts. Everything inside me is coiled tight, caught between the echo of her touch and the ghost of a name I thought I’d buried long ago.
She should’ve run.
She should’ve slammed the door behind her, thrown that journal into the hearth, and screamed at me to stay away. That would’ve made more sense. That would’ve been safer—for her, at least. But she’s still here. Still walking the same halls that remember what I did, what I let happen. And I don’t know if I should be grateful or afraid.
I don’t sleep. My body aches with the tension of holding everything in—the beast pacing just under the skin, the guilt gnawing deeper every time I catch her scent in a room I thought I’d locked her out of. I avoid mirrors. I don’t want to see theman staring back at me, because he’ll have her eyes. The way she looked at me after the kiss—that stunned, breathless look like she’d seen something worth staying for—keeps replaying in my head, and it guts me.
When she knocks on the study door, she doesn’t wait for permission.
“I’m coming in,” she says, her voice gentle but unwavering.
She steps inside holding two mugs, steam curling up from them in lazy spirals. She’s in one of Mary’s oversized sweaters again, sleeves nearly covering her fingers, and her hair’s a little messy, like she’d been thinking too hard to bother with brushing it. I can’t stop staring.
“I thought you might want tea,” she says as she walks toward me, the weight of her gaze steady. “Mary said you like black with honey.”
I blink, surprised by that. “I haven’t told anyone that.”
“Sisters know things,” she replies, almost smiling, and holds out the mug like an olive branch. “Or so I’ve heard.”
I take it—not because I want the tea, but because it’s her offering it. When our fingers touch, there’s that same jolt, like every nerve in me sits up and pays attention to her. She doesn’t flinch. Neither do I. But I want to.
“I read the journal,” she says.
