Fear crawled in next.
“Answer me, dammit.”
“Adora,” he said, full of regret. “I’ve known my whole life.”
I saw red. “You son of a bitch,” I shouted, shoving him in the chest.
Cyrus grabbed my elbows to keep us steady.
“Adora,” he begged in my ear, locking my arms in his hands to keep me from hurting him. “Calm down and just give me a second. I only need a fucking second.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” I howled, almost not recognizing my voice. “You knew this entire time, and you had sex with my sister for years. You let her fallin lovewith you, Cyrus. Oh mygod.” I keeled over, trying to catch a breath, but he was too close, and there was no air. I shoved him away, and his back hit the shelves. “She is my sister!”
“Don’t you think I know that?!” he shouted, stomach heaving, water rimming his crushed-blue eyes. “Fuck!”
“You know how much my sisters mean to me. You know I would lay down my life for them. How could you do this to me?” If it had been Cyrus and me in the beginning, Ivy wouldn’t have fallen in love, and I wouldn’t have known Stone at all because my heart would have been too full to care. And I wouldn’t be heartbroken. I could have been too happy to be angry. I could have been different. Maybe everything would have been different.And now there’s Stone, I thought again, but in truth, there wasn’t. Not anymore. Stone was gone, too. And I couldn’t think straight. “You could have prevented all of this, Cyrus,” I spat. “You are the love of her life!”
“And you are mine.”
My stomach flipped.
For ten years, my sister longed to hear these words.
But he was saying them to me, not to her. And I hated myself for it.
Cyrus walked closer, and I backed away until my spine met the door. When he leaned down, he had both hands on my shoulders. I turned my eyes away from him. “Look at me because I want you to understand.”
I looked him in the eyes, trying to take a steady breath.
He wet his lips. “It’s you, and it scared the fuck out of me because I knew if I ever allowed myself to love you in that way, I would love you more than anything. And if I ever lost you, it wouldruinme,” he cracked, eyes bouncing between mine. “Do you know how hard it isnotto fall in love with you, Adora? Do you have any fucking idea?” I looked down, but he lifted my chin. “I kept you close because I couldn’t live without you, and I put your sister between us, so I’d never become weak. As simple and immoral as it sounds, that’s the truth.”
“So why are you marrying me now? What’s changed?”
“Because our union changes the fate of the town. Because you and I were always supposed to be together, and now this town may burn down simply because I was selfish and scared. This marriage will set things back to how it’s supposed to be. If we’re wrong, and it doesn’t, the whole town goes up in smoke, and everyone dies. Either way, I get to spend whatever time I have left with you, the only person I’ve ever cared about. And I don’t want to waste these days resenting each other or avoiding each other.
“How would you rather waste them, Cyrus?”
Cyrus dropped his head and bit his lip. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“No,” I said, my eyes looking skyward as I stepped away from him.
His hand shot out, grabbed my waist, and pinned me back against the door. Suddenly he was caging me in, his palms flat on both sides of me.
“I want to wake up every morning with you and fuck you, and I want to fuck you and fall asleep with you every night. I want you laughing, you happy, you naked, you with me, whatever we’re doing, and I want to kiss you all the goddamn time. And I want to fuck youandmake love to you because I’ve never had that before, and I want that with you, and only you, for the rest of my life. For fuck’s sake, Adora, the things I wouldfuckingdo,” he said all in one go, knees bent as he leaned back with a hand against his chest.
I was breathless. Dizzy.
And it felt like ninety-nine degrees hotter in the crypt.
Here was Cyrus, willing to make love to me during the day and under the light of the sun if I asked him. Here was Cyrus, willing to fall to his knees for me if I asked him. And here was Cyrus, ready to confess his love for me if I let him. But all I could think about was Stone, who wouldn’t do any of these things. A man who wasn’t even here.
My brows were raised, and I didn’t know for how long they were stuck like that, but I couldn’t drop them. “Cyrus,” I said, shaking my head, and then nothing more came out of me. But then I could drop my brows, which was a positive. “How do you know?”
Cyrus looked at me, wounded. “Do you have any idea how difficult this is for me? I’ve been holding on to this for years while you’ve been fucking my best friend, andhow do you know, she asks me ...” He shook his head.
“Do you think you feel this waybecauseit’s written in the book?”
“Careful,” he said, falling back a step. “You’re questioning our convictions.”
