“Fight for you?” He blinked, his eyes wide. “Fight forme! For once, choose me!” He breathed in, pain etched into his voice. “Adora, I set foot in this town for you. I trespassed onto another man’s property, climbed three stories to a window, entered unwelcomed, and shoved my cock inside his fiancé. I deserted the Heathens to be here tonight. I’ve betrayed every moral code I stand by for you, a girl who refuses to choose me and hurts me every chance she has. I’ve been fighting for you, only to watch him kiss these lips six hours after they were on mine. But my torment isn’t enough. Now you want the gods to know you own my heart too, is that it? What’s next, my spine? My soul? You want me on my fucking knees to rip me apart and watch me bleed like I’ve been once before?” His eyes were angry and bouncing between mine. “Well, look who’s the monster now.”
My head was shaking, my throat was tight, and everything was blurry.
Stone’s eyes narrowed when he grabbed the back of my neck and lowered his head to meet my eyes. “My lungs would have to be ripped out, last breath stolen, before that ever happens again.”
He let me go, his chest heaving.
“You’re broken,” I whispered. “You’re angry and broken.”
Stone dropped his head back and exhaled.
“Broken infers there is something inside me to be fixed. I’m not broken, Adora. It’s that I’m not whole without you.” His eyes swung to me. “There’s a difference.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, unable to hear the song play again. I turned it off and started packing up the vanilla colas, the blankets, the date I stupidly created for us. “None of it matters. I still have to marry him for the well-being of this town.”
“No, you don’t have to do anything,” he said. “You’re the author. I’m just the blank pages you whisper your secrets to, then the thing you crumble and toss to the side. I’m the book in the palm of your hands. In the end, this story is yours. You can write it whichever way you want.”
I shook my head. “If I could change things I would because I’m scared of living without you.”
Stone kicked off the wall, leaving. “You looked happy today. It should be easy for you to pretend you’re not miserable tomorrow.” Then I saw his back as he walked toward the secret passageway to the tunnel. My heart was screaming at me. My blood was trying to leave me and run to him.
This was it. This was the end. And I couldn’t stop it.
I refused to let those words be our last.
“Hey, Stone,” I rushed to say, exhausted, defeated, but he had to know.
He turned back around, and I took him in. All his details.
His hooded eyes, his long black lashes, his mouth too sensitive for a man.
“I’ll always wantonlyyou,” I finally said out loud, not a whisper. Not a whisper at all. “It will always beonlyyou for me. And that will never change.”
I turned first, scared, shoving the blanket into the bag, my fingers shaking, unable to bear the sight of his back again.
“Hey, Adora,” he called.
I couldn’t help it. I straightened my spine and turned to catch his eyes again.
“I’ll always choose you. In every story,” he said out loud, not a whisper.
Not a whisper at all.
“That will never change.”
CHAPTER 50
STONE
January 26, 2021
5 Days until the Cantini-Sullivan Wedding
Some of thegreatest works of art to ever bestow upon us happened to be nothing more than an artist’s need to be felt or heard.
I refuse to believe it was chance that those who were not able to express themselves in a way society approved possessed otherworldly talent. For centuries, books have served as portals and road maps and diaries, as hearts with black blood, paper chambers, and leather-bound bones to encourage a reader to think and dream beyond the breadth of limits. How incredible for something to have the ability to bind two people together, allowing one to feel and hear another when miles, and sometimes lifetimes, apart. Howincredible.
They said that it was the eyes that were a window to the soul.
