He lifts me up, tucking me tighter into his chest. “No. This isn’t the sort of love that’s written into fairy tales, and this isn’t the sort of love you find just anywhere. You said it when I woke up after Samil tried to kill us. This love is not a normal love. It’s a love that goes beyond this lifetime. It’s a love that never dies, but that doesn’t mean I want to go the rest of this life without you only to hope I find you again in the next.”
I hiccup out a sob. “I meant it.”
“As do I. So stay with me, by my side, and when darkness threatens to take over your heart and mind, promise you’ll come tell me about it so I can hold your hand and remind you that you are the sunshine of our lives and that we cannot exist without your warmth or radiance.”
“I promise.”
Only as the words leave my mouth, I’m not sure I mean them. Because right now, I feel anything but sunshine coursing through me. And I’m not sure how I’ll ever be that woman again.
17
SEBASTIAN
The weight of the leaden sky seems to echo the heaviness in my heart. As I stand by the window, watching the icy raindrops leave their fleeting marks on the glass, I can’t help but feel a deep sense of despair. Bellamy lost her father, and the grief that clouds her once sparkling eyes is a constant reminder of the pain she’s going through.
“Sebastian?” Rowan’s voice breaks the silence, drawing me away from the window. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“What is it?”
He enters my study, glancing around, and when he finds it’s just us, he shuts the door behind him. “Are we still scheduled to go to the seaside tomorrow?”
I nod, leaning against the glass and folding my arms. “That’s the plan. It’s what Bellamy said she wanted, but this morning she seemed even worse than yesterday.”
“She’s been like this for over a week now. We need to do something.”
I stare at my brother, seeing the same worry etched in his features as I feel in myself. “I know, but what can we do? She’sgrieving, Rowan. It’s not something that can be fixed with a Band-Aid or a few comforting words. He was her entire life since she was thirteen and her mother died. She blames herself for not being there when he fell.”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair, frustration clear in his movements. “There has to be something. You’re her husband. Surely there’s some way you can help her?”
My heart clenches at the reminder. The truth is that I should be able to offer solace and support to my wife, but I’m at a loss for how to do so. I thought we’d made progress. She came down the next morning after I’d shoved toast down her throat and ate breakfast with the children. After that, we’d showered and talked and made arrangements for him.
But it was as if making those arrangements, the finality of them, set her back, and for the last eight days, all the light has been zapped out of her eyes, and the woman who has been pure rays of sunshine is now a ghost of who she once was.
“I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried. I’ve talked to her and held her. I’ve done everything I can think of. But for the last several days, she’s given me a smile that doesn’t touch her eyes and tells me she’s doing okay, which I know is a lie. She doesn’t want me to worry, but that only makes me worry more. Every time I approach her now, it’s like there’s this…wall between us. One that I don’t know how to break down.”
“Then we’ll find a way to break it down together,” he says, determination flaring in his eyes as he sits on the arm of the sofa. “You’re not alone in this either, you know, and you don’t have to take it all on by yourself.”
And yet, that’s how I’ve always done things. The eldest son. The king of a country, even before I was ready to be. The single father to three children. But since Bellamy came along, I’ve learned to trust in ways I never have before. And Rowan has been here. He hasn’t left to flitter about the world the way he used to.
It seems we’ve both grown, and I hadn’t realized how much I needed him until this moment.
“Thank you, brother,” I murmur, grateful he’s here and saying all of this to me. “She’s already outright refused a grief counselor. If you have any other suggestions, I’m all ears.”
Only his bleak expression says it all. We’re both at a loss.
We breathe in silence for a moment, the patter of sleety rain against the window filling the room. Since her father’s death, I’ve felt a storm brewing within me, a tempest of emotions that threatens to overwhelm me. Helplessness. Sorrow. Frustration.
All I want is to find a way to ease Bellamy’s pain, but it seems that every attempt I’ve made has only pushed her further away.
She’s spent some time with the children, playing and trying to laugh, but even that feels forced. I can only hope time will heal her wounds, but I’m worried she might need more than that.
“You’re blaming yourself.”
“Wouldn’t you? Look what I’ve done to her. Christ, Rowan, from the moment I put my ring on her finger, her life has turned to hell. I don’t know what to do. Part of me thinks…” I end it there, unable to say the words and hardly able to think them.
“Maybe,” Rowan says slowly, steering me away from the path I was headed down, “if she won’t speak to a counselor, someone she doesn’t know, we could have Althea talk to her. She’s been through her own share of grief, and the two are very close. Perhaps she can offer some insight.”
It’s not a bad thought. Althea did offer and I believe she’s tried in her way. She’s made Bellamy get out of bed to do yoga with her, but Bellamy hasn’t talked at all during their sessions, and Althea didn’t push it because she said sometimes people will talk on their own time and you can’t force that.
