“Yes. Of course I do. How could you doubt that?”
“I—I rejected you in Wexon. I hurt you.”
“Youshatteredme. But even broken, my heart has always been yours.”
The fervent words hit her hard. Tears stung her eyes. “You said you wanted to forget everything.”
He blinked. “You . . . thought I meant my love for you?” He huffed a weak, humorless laugh. “Fates, Vera, no. I only wanted you to forget every reason you had for rejecting me.” He leaned forward and cupped her cheek with one gentle hand. “I knew you were in pain after losing Ivonne. I knew you needed space, but . . . I didn’t know how to fight for you when you blamed me for her death.”
Vera sucked in a breath, a single tear splashing down her cheek and hitting his gently stroking thumb. “I never really blamed you. I only told you that so you would leave me alone.”
“Why?”
Pain cracked his voice, and she flinched. “When I saw Ivonne on that bed . . . Venn, that could have been me. A slight change of fate, and thatwouldhave been me.”
“You lived,” he said, his voice soft but fervent. “That’s no reason to punish yourself with unhappiness—”
“I was relieved.”
He froze.
Guilt burned her cheeks and swelled her throat, but she forced herself to speak. To admit her darkest shame. “My sister was dead—murdered—and I felt relief that it wasn’t me. How wrong is that? How despicable? My own sister was killed, and . . .”
“Vera,” he groaned, his palm on her face firming. “What you felt? That relief, and then the resulting guilt? It’s the guilt of a survivor. It happens to soldiers when they lose friends in battle. It hurts.Fates, it hurts, but what you felt isn’t wrong.” He eased closer, cradling her face between both of his hands, gently forcing her to hold his gaze. “Just because you felt relief at being alive doesn’t mean you wanted Ivonne to die. They aren’t connected—that feeling and that thought. It might feel like they are, but they aren’t.
“When I thought about how easily it could have been you on that bed . . . Vera, thattorturesme. But it didn’t happen. Ivonne’s life was stolen from her, but you lived. That isn’t a bad thing—it’s a fates-blasted miracle.”
His words only made her chest tighten. Her vision blurred as tears crowded her eyes. “I couldn’t see that. I couldn’t be happy. I didn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserveyou. I had to push you away—it was the only way to punish myself.”
“Do you still feel like you don’t deserve to be happy?”
“I don’t know.” Uncertainty frayed her words.
Pain flashed in his eyes, raw and deep. “You deserve happiness, Vera. If you can’t believe yourself, will you believe me?”
She let out a rattling breath. “I want to believe it. It’s just so hard.”
“I know. But what would Ivonne want for you? Would she want you to punish yourself for the simple fact that you survived? Or would she want you to live without guilt? Wouldn’t she want you to be happy?”
Vera’s lips trembled. “She would.”
His thumb brushed over her tears, his gaze intense. “Then tell me what you want.”
“You,” she breathed, no hesitation. “I want you.”
Venn’s eyes closed, his chest expanding on a sharp inhale. When his eyes opened, they were dark, fierce, and locked solely on her. “You have me, Vera. You’ve always had me.”
Her heart thrilled, but doubt still curled in her gut. “How can you forgive me? For hurting you so badly?”
“That’s easy.” He leaned in, and his lips grazed her skin as he whispered, “I love you, Vera Smallwood.”
Warmth swelled inside her chest. She couldn’t move without pain, so she wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and tugged him in, guiding his mouth to hers. She kissed him carefully, mindful of his split lip, but Venn quickly took control of the kiss, deepening it. He angled his mouth over hers and she lost herself in the glorious heat, the perfect sensation of being kissed by Venn Grannard.
She had feared she would never experience this again, but here she was—reveling in the soft but firm touch of his lips, the feel of his fingers tunneling into her hair. He drowned out every thought in her head, every doubt she carried, until all she could do was feel.
And for the first time since Ivonne’s death,feelingdidn’t hurt.
Venn finally broke away with a groan. “We need to stop.”
