He didn't look at her. "Make it quick."
She drew in a slow breath, bracing herself against the weight of the memory to come.
"When I was nine, my brother was dying. Owain. He'd been fine, healthy, laughing, herding the sheep with the dogs and me oneafternoon, and then the bruises came on his arms, his legs. Purple marks that didn't fade. He started getting tired halfway across the yard, holding his ribs like something inside hurt. I thought he was just trying to get me to do his chores. Then there was the cough that didn’t go away. I was angry because he kept me up all night. My parents are farmers. We all thought it would go away. It didn't."
Her eyes glistened.
"We drove to the hospital in a storm because the village clinic didn't have a GP that day when he started sounding like he couldn't breathe. The rain was so heavy. My mum could barely see the road. He was in the hospital for a while. There were a lot of painful tests. He joked about becoming Nana's pincushion. They told us it was aplastic anemia. His bone marrow wasn't making blood cells. Without a transplant, there was no hope. None."
Dorian still didn't turn, but she saw the way his shoulders stiffened.
"They tested all of us. None of us was a match. HLA typing or something of that sort. And then they found a match. They wouldn't tell us who, but my grandad knew a guy in the children's ward, and he found where you were."
Her voice thickened with emotion and tears. "You donated. You were just a kid yourself, but you gave him the bone marrow. It was hope for us. My grandfather took me to see you that day after you donated, when you were recovering from the giant bruise on your side. He thought I was asleep in his arms, but I wasn't. I saw you lying there, pale as paper. Your face was scrunched up with pain every time you moved. He knelt beside you and held your hand. I remember your blonde curls shining in the light of the room. You didn't let go for a while, even though you looked like every breath hurt."
She swallowed. "And I was fascinated by this brave boy. That day, after what you did for my brother ,you became a hero to me. I started collecting bits of your life, newspaper clippings at first, and later things I found on the internet. My hero worship turned into a crush. My crush into an unattainable love. I even structured my degree in the hopes that someday... And when you offered me a contract, when you offered me what I foolishly thought was a relationship, it was everything I'd ever wanted. I thought... I thought it meant you saw me, finally. I hoped that sex would become... something more. What an utter idiot I was, innit? That contract should have been the first clue of what you were inside. Empty."
She blinked hard, her tears spilling unashamed. "You gave me a safe word that I never used. Not because I didn't need it sometimes, but because I was grateful just to be there with you. To be with the man who had saved my brother. With the man who was my everything. Sometimes, it was hard to look at your face, you were so beautiful to me. There wasn’t anything I wouldn't have done for you."
Her voice broke again, then steadied. "But over time, my love... it started to change. The shine wore off. It got jaded. With every hit, you chipped away at it, a little at a time. And then you managed to destroy it completely. I started to see you clearly. You weren't the person I built up in my head. Maybe the donation wasn't even about kindness, it was just one of those flashy, grand things rich boys do, because they can."
That made him finally turn his head a fraction, his profile sharp as glass, but he still didn't face her fully. His face gave nothing away.
"My baby will be fine," she said quietly. "I will love him. I will provide for him. We don’t need someone like you in our lives.”
"She lifted the box from his desk, clutching it to her chest. "You don't need to worry. You will never see us again. Here is a contract for you this time. It absolves you of all parental obligations."
She slid the folder towards him. "I have signed the dotted line. Congratulations, Dorian. Yet again, your cruelty has not failed you. "
The silence that followed was like the air before a lightning strike. Minutes ticked by. He didn't speak. He didn't stop her when she walked out of the door.
Rune didn't look back either. Because the man she'd built her life around wasn't her hero anymore. The relationship she imagined in her mind was ash. It was time to look forward, not back.
Chapter eleven
Chapter 11
The door shut behind her, and a moment later, a button clicked.
Dorian watched as Rune shrugged her coat on and made her way to the elevator. She had left a box on the table, black with a red bow on top. Only then did Dorian let his shoulders droop. He pressed the intercom to let Tom know that he wasn't to be disturbed.
He was good at compartmentalising. His life existed in neat, watertight boxes, business, family, social, personal. Rune had her own separate box, carefully sealed and tidy. Contained because she did not quite fit in one or the other.
Except now her box was leaking. Bleeding into all the others. Making a mess of the clean lines. He'd miscalculated somehow. This had never happened before since he hit adulthood. No, that's a lie; he’d almost lost his closest friend over a woman.
Women cheated. That was a fact. He'd seen it, expected it, and built his contracts to guard against it. He'd never thought Rune would, but she had. Her gilded cage did not stop that from happening, he thought as the glass in his hand shattered and the sharp edges cut into his palm.
For a desperate fraction of a second, he considered making her a counteroffer. Something tempting enough to keep her. Then he dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. The child was unacceptable. The child had to go, and he had a feeling Rune may not comply with that.
He rubbed his jaw, his unfocused gaze fixed on the wall without really seeing it. Just weeks ago, Crispin had lost his ever-loving mindover a woman and went against his family in a board meeting. It was like he was ready to burn his future to the ground for her. Then he unravelled completely when Aria had pulled a disappearing act. Now he was holed up in Oxford, chasing her ghost.
That couldn't be him. That would never be him.
Dorian let out a slow breath, drew a sheet of monogrammed paper from the neat stack on his desk.
Two weeks ago, after dropping Crispin in Oxford, he'd come back here and, he would admit, lost control with Rune. He had been an arsehole. More of an arsehole than usual. He knew what he was.
Then he'd made it worse. He hired Margo once he realized Rune loathed her on sight.
