“You can. You’re doing well; keep going.”
I drew a breath that didn’t feel like mine.
It came out in a rush, a confession against the sanctity of silence. “I’m not like Juliet.” The glass in my hand was close to breaking. “I’m not an afterthought. I’m the opposite. My father always knew where I was. Every minute of my life.”
I saw his jaw tighten, his fingers drum against his thigh.
“Everything was arranged. There was no escaping him. No negotiating. It was like…”
“Like what?” Menace asked.
“A political arrangement.”
His face was hard, closed. But I saw it change, recognition settling in.
My chest was a cavity, dark and empty. My words had been gutted from it.
“I ran because they were going to make me marry someone.” My voice cracked again. This time I didn’t bother fixing it. “Because they wouldn’t allow me to say no.”
He watched me, calculating. The way I’d expected. But he didn’t tell me to get out. Not yet.
“Who?”
His patience was a knife, slow and brutal.
I couldn’t look at him when I answered.
“Someone my father thought would strengthen his power. Someone who didn’t care whether or not I loved him. Someone cruel. Someone who needs heirs.”
His eyes burned. I could feel them on me, a heat worse than his silence. My breath felt as final as a tombstone. “It was a strategic match,” I said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His voice was rougher than before. He was beginning to see. Beginning to understand.
“I was afraid.”
His posture stiffened. He was beginning to put the pieces together.
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of everything. I’d just been pulled from the nightmare of that lab. I didn’t know if my father knew that I’d been locked up in that cell. Afraid of what people would see when they looked at me. Of whatyouwould see.” I cried.
I waited for him to say something. For him to cast me out with the rest of my secrets.
But he didn’t.
“You’re thinking of how you can run now, aren’t you?” he asked.
A short, bitter laugh escaped before I could stop it. “Trying to,” I said. “But not getting very far.”
A choked sob climbed its way into my throat.
“When you broke down that door to my cell, it was like I’d been freed from more than what Dane had done to me. Something broke inside me when I looked in your eyes. I should have just told you who I was and had you return me. But I was selfish. I dared to hope.”
His face was in his hands.
“Please,” I said. “Please look at me.”
