“Answer me.” Aimilia’s firm, but not harsh, voice cut through the silence. Then it wavered on her next word. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
That one question ripped him out of his stupor. There had to be a way to fix this.
She was looking too closely. She was seeing more of him than she was ever meant to.
Thananyonewas ever meant to.
“Why would I?” Nikias bit out, narrowing his eyes. “You hated me for no reason. How was I supposed to read your mind and discover the assumptions you made? The real question is, why didn’t you ask?”
“Because you’re their heir!” Aimilia let out a sharp laugh as her eyes spilled over again and she gestured at him with both hands, the ring on her finger glinting in the runelight. “You’re the one they like! The one who can do no wrong! Why would I have ever thought they treated you like they did Gavril when I only ever saw them treat you differently?”
“You don’t think by the time we met I’d figured out what it took to be the one they liked? Or that liking me has never actually stopped them from hitting me? You thought they just took one look at Gavril as a toddler and decided then was thetime to start hitting? You didn’t think for a second they’d been practicing on me for years?”
He was saying too much. He needed to stop talking, but it was all pouring out of his mouth, a waterfall he’d spent years trying to dam up and hold it back.
That one touch to his face had shattered his careful construction, his life’s work.
“You let me think that!” Aimilia shook her head, but the tears kept coming from her eyes. He was torn between his innate desire to wipe them away and everything in him that screamed to escape before he opened his mouth again. “You were going to marry me and never tell me that if you could help it. You married the woman you love above all else and younevertold her what happened behind closed doors.”
Nikias stepped forward, four most damning words about ready to fall out, but he caught them before they could.
It would only make his shame absolute and complete.
Instead, he said, “Why do you care? You claim that you don’t want to marry me. That you hate me. None of this changes anything.”
And yet everything had.
Aimilia hit the dresser again, holding the hand with his ring on it to her chest. “I—How little then do you think of me? That this wouldn’t change anything? I told you that was why I hated you, and you said nothing as I rejected you. You would rather let me hate you for a lie than admit the truth.”
“How could I ever admit to you the truth? How could you expect me to admit to the woman I’m trying to marry, that I will vow to protect, that I can’t make itstop!” Nikias’ voice cracked and the tears that he’d long since numbed himself to came rising.
As if this couldn’t get worse. Now he was about to cry and Aimilia would never be able to forget how pathetic he was. Thepalace could come down on him right now and Nikias would consider it a blessing.
But it wouldn’t save him.
Nothing could save him from this.
Nikias kept his eyes squeezed shut, using every ounce of his willpower to push back the sob trying to make him even more of an embarrassment. He took a long, slow breath. “I am a grown man. A commander. A widower. Regent to Imperia. My father is on his deathbed, and I still can’t make it stop. Is that what you want to hear?”
Soft, small hands gripped his shoulders. “Of course not.”
He opened his eyes, staring directly into hers. He would not crack. He could still salvage this. There had to be a way to salvage this.
“If you never suspected and Gavril never told you, how did you find out?”
Nikias had the suspicion her answer to this would either be his one last shred of hope or the final nail in his coffin.
“Nikias…” Aimilia’s voice cracked. “What do you think I’ve been crying about? How do you think I knew which eye?”
“No. You were gone. You’d left—You took the tray—” Then it hit him. He pulled out of her grip, nearly tripping on the rug as he stared down at her. “The passageway. That’s how you did it. I should have known Gavril told you and that’s how you did it.”
It was all starting to make sense.
Aimilia’s hands hung in the air. She took another step toward him. “I just wanted to know why they wanted to see me. I didn’t expect—I didn’t know what I was seeing at first?—”
She saw.
She’d seenallof it.
