“Are you still in love with me?”
18
CIAN
Water catches in the back of my throat just as those words leave Faina’s mouth and it takes all my strength not to choke while the tickle assaults my throat. I glimpse her eyebrows shooting upward and then I give in and cough quickly.
“Oh, fuck, are you okay?” Faina rises in her seat slightly and I wave her down with my hand.
“Fine,” I reply hoarsely. “Just some water?—”
“With a reaction like that, I think I retract my question,” Faina says while leaning back in her chair.
“No, it wasn’t you,” I gasp around a cough. “I swear.” It was partly her, but I’m not going to tell her that. Faina’s way of being so direct without any warning is rather charming, but I didn’t expect our light back and forth to turn into her grabbing me by the balls, demanding an answer.
An answer I’m not sure I can give.
She tucks her hair behind that same ear she always does and toys with the stem of her wine glass, but she doesn’t drink. She gazes out the window and watches people wandering past, lost in their own deep conversations.
Do I still love her?
It’s hardly a question. I never stopped loving her. Our relationship ended because my life imploded and the crumbling Irish-Italian treaty became more important. Then, after being kidnapped by Domenico and the following torture and everything that came afterward, a relationship was far from my mind.
But I never stopped loving her. My feelings were not why our secret fling ended. Life was.
Faina rolls her jaw slightly and pulls her lower lip into her mouth while still not looking at me. A faint blush of pink sits high up on her cheeks as if she’s embarrassed she even asked, and I immediately want to soothe her.
“I do still love you.”
Her head snaps back to me with wide, doe-like eyes which make her look adorable. “What?”
“Faina, I never stopped loving you. What I felt for you wasneverthe reason we stopped being together. All the other shit just got in the way, but I never stopped. But…”
Her expression falters when I saybutand it’s like a punch in the gut.
“But I’m not the same person I was when we were last together properly. Last year I was… I was happy. Life was exciting and Ithought all the pain and destruction were over. I thought I had a future ahead of me.”
“And now?” she asks softly.
“Now… I’m not the same person.”
“I’m not the same person I was either.” Faina continues to chew on her lower lip. “So we’re both different. It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s not just that… I’m broken, Faina. And I don’t mean that in a way to make you think you can fix me. I mean I’m really broken.”
“So?” She shrugs one shoulder. “So am I.”
“No, this is different. When my family died I—” A sudden warmth sparks behind my eyes. Is this really where I chose to pour my heart out to her? In the middle of a Greek restaurant over wine while romantic music plays in the air. “I feel like I died with them.”
Faina’s head tilts ever so slightly.
“There’s this… cavern inside me. Like some kind of fucking black hole, and everything goes in there. When I was fighting Hawk? I didn’t really feel the pain. I don’t feel anything anymore. If I even stop to think about how many people I lost then it feels like my own throat is strangling me from the inside. My brother, my twin, their families, my mother—” The words catch in my throat and the world blurs faintly when I blink. “Everyone I ever loved isgone.”
“I’m still here,” Faina remarks quietly. “Unless you’ve decided dating an older woman is no longer your thing, in which case, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
The lightness in her voice pulls an unexpected small smile across my lips. “You’re not listening to me.”
“I am.”
