“Tom, could you give us a moment?”
“Of course.” He set the plates down on the table and grabbed one of the teas and a saucer before leaving us.
“Davina… Is there something you wish to tell me?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I insisted, my throat too thick to be convincing.
“Because if there was, you could talk to me about it.” He peered at me knowingly.
“Is it worth it?” I blurted.
“Is what worth it?”
“Tom, what you two have. Because I was absolutely certain that it wasn’t. Those months of watching Cee grieve… The way father dismissed everything about mother…”
A knowing expression crossed my brother’s face. “What Tom and I have… Yes, it’s worth it. Every single day that I wake next to him, it’s worth the grief that might come someday—perhaps far too soon. He’s... even a single moment would be worth it. And I know someday one of us will be left alone. And then that person will know Celine’s grief truly.” He broke off, swallowing. “You mourned for Gabriel. You still do. Do you not?”
“Yes.”
“Would you give up the time you had with him? If it meant you wouldn’t feel the hurt.”
Gabriel had left an indelible mark on my youth. When Father wanted a respectable lady and Mother wanted a doll, he accepted me as I was. He taught me unladylike pursuits and encouraged my adventures. His absence still ached. But if I hadn’t had him, I wouldn’t be me. “No.”
“I can tell you right now that Celine would say the same. She wouldn’t trade a single second of her life with him to ease the pain she felt.” He reached for my hand, offering a gentle squeeze. “The bad, it doesn’t erase the good, Dav. You have to live for the good, otherwise you’re just hiding from the bad. And I’ve never known you to hide from anything.”
I nodded, but it was a thoughtless, monotonous movement.
“Is this why you’ve always insisted you do not wish to wed?”
“Yes,” I croaked.
“Oh, Davina. I thought… I assumed you wanted to retain the freedoms afforded to you, living independently as you do. If I had known… we would have had this conversation years ago. Until last night, I knew with absolute certainty that I would never marry for love. Do you understand how precious the opportunity is?”
His gaze was imploring, willing me to believe him.
“He asked me to marry him.” My voice was cold, hollow, belonging to someone else, someone whose chest wasn’t so tight she could hardly breathe.
“And you said no.”
“Yes.”
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t— I’ve spent so long fighting against the feeling. How would I even know?”
“I think you do know. I think that if you didn’t feel it, there would be nothing to fight.” He pressed his lips together, stacking them to one side of his face in that perfectly Xander expression of sympathy.
A sob broke free. “He’s gone. It’s too late.”
“Is it?”
“He— I rejected him, repeatedly. I abducted him. I ruined his life. Hell, his entire family believes we’re married.”
His head tipped to the side, brow furrowing. “I beg your pardon?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’d never accept me. Not after everything.”
“We’re revisiting the family-believes-you’re-married issue later. That man knows better than anyone, except perhaps me, how infuriating you are. He’s rescued you from ill-considered occupations and pirate whiskey. And I cannot even mention that time you snuck aboard one of His Majesty’s finest vessels without nausea. He knows all that—knows you—and he still asked you to marry him. That’s a man who loves you. Now that I consider it, he’s probably the only man on earth I believe could survive a marriage to you. If he knew you loved him, he never would have left without a ring on your finger.”
