The horse walks on. The stars are sharp and cold overhead, and I’m pressed against his chest, and I can feel his heartbeat hammering against my back, and I don’t know what to feel anymore.
“Mother told me the truth,” he says roughly. “After you left. She told me everything.”
The words have me instinctively recoiling, but he doesn’t let go.
He knows.
All of it.
He knows how shameful—
“She told me what he used to say to you. About your virginity. How he mocked you for it. Called you a tease. Made you feel dirty for waiting.”
Oh God.
“And then she looked at my face,” he says, “and she knew. She knew what I’d done. Because I’d used the exact same weapon he used.”
The look on Veil’s face makes me swallow hard.
“I confirmed your worst fear, Evianne. That all men would eventually use it against you. That even me, even the man who spent weeks trying to show you that you were precious—”
“D-Don’t.”I press my hand over his mouth. “Don’t say that.”
He kisses my palm. Gentle. Reverent.
“You trusted me with something precious,” he grates out against my skin, “and I weaponized it. Just like he did.”
“You’re not him.” The words come out before I can stop them. “Joseph did it because he wanted to control me. You did it because you were—”
“Scared.”
I nod.
“Terrified,” he corrects, his voice raw. “Of being made a fool. Of losing something that mattered more than I knew how to handle.”
His jaw tightens against my shoulder.
“I built walls my whole life because I watched what trust did to the people around me. And when Joseph showed up at the gates calling himself your fiancé, every wall went back up at once. I was so certain, so convinced you’d played me, that I couldn’t see straight.”
“I’m not using you.” I cup his face now, making him look at me. “I never was.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?” I search his eyes. “Because if there’s any part of you that still thinks—”
“There’s no doubt.” His forehead presses against mine. “You’re nothing like what I feared. You never were. You’re genuine and brave and real, and I almost lost you because I was too scared to see it.”
The horse shifts beneath us, patient.
“T-Tell me again.”
“Tell you what?”
“What you were going to ask me. On the balcony. Before I ran.”
His hands frame my face.
“Be my girlfriend.”
