“You don’t have to be. It’s just that you’re used to playing games—-” Ilse shrugged awkwardly. “And I’m not.”
“You don’t have to be so polite.” He laughed humorlessly. “You were right about me from the start. I have too many damn secrets—-”
Ilse flinched. “I’m sorry.” And because she couldn’t bear it, she added in a rush, “I realize now I might have been a little harsh—-”
“You only spoke the truth. Iwaspretending the entire time—-”
Unable to bear the way he was mocking himself, she pressed her fingers to his lips without thinking, and the billionaire stopped speaking.
Their gazes collided, and the way his blue eyes stared so intensely at her threatened to make her lungs stop working.
Oh, Jaak.
“I had secrets, too,” she whispered shakily. “And I used to pretend, too.” A tremulous smile touched her lips. “It’s why I knew you had them, it’s why I knew you were pretending, and it’s why—-”
Her fingers slowly lowered from his lips.
“I wanted to help you with them.” She swallowed. “I wanted you in my life, Jaak, and that’s why I wanted to help you face them. Every time I looked at you, I saw the way those secrets were hurting you—-”
The billionaire whitened.
“And I just thought...at least with me, you wouldn’t need to keep secrets or pretend—-”
Ah, God.He had gotten her so damn wrong, and yet she was still here.
“I just wanted to take the pain away...” Her voice trailed off, and Ilse wondered if she had said too much again.
And then she heard the billionaire say, “Thank you, Ilse.”
Oh.
Her head jerked up.
And the billionaire said again, “Thank you.”
He looked at her, and he knew it was too late for both of them.
“Y-you would have done the same to me.”
He didn’t say anything, unwilling to shatter her illusions of him. Love was like poison in the heart, and hewaspoisoned, with the way his heart could stop and start beating at just one word from Ilse.
Her brown eyes clung to his, and the poison in his heart grew, spreading from one heartbeat to another, rising and falling with every breath one took, swaying from pain to joy with a single glance.
“J-Jaak?”
The sound of her voice told him that the poison in his heart was neither flimsy nor ephemeral. It was not the kind that could heal with only time as its antidote, wasn’t the kind that might nothave needed a cure at all because it hadn’t been poison in the first place.
This poison was real. This poison was once in a lifetime, and it was as beautiful as it was agonizing, as powerful as it was terrifying.
He looked at her, and she was so damn innocent, so damn pure, that it was obvious she believed she only needed the words.
But he knew better.
And so instead of answering her, the billionaire dropped the umbrella he was holding and started to lower his head.
Ilse stiffened. “Jaak?” She started to lean back and step away, but the billionaire’s arms suddenly went around her, yanking her forward, imprisoning her in his embrace.
A gasp escaped her, and she tried shoving him off. “Jaak—-”
