A pause. “Yes.”
“Because my mother…”
“Because my father cared for her. Because she was in danger, and he wanted to keep her safe, even if that risked war.”
Another question occurs to me. “And my father?”
His jaw works again, but his eyes stay sharp, unreadable. “I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I said, I don’t know.” Something in the way he says the words makes it clear the topic is off-limits. I’m suddenly too tired to push. He steps closer to me. “Say something.”
I shake my head, my gaze locked on the ground. “I don’t know if I can forgive you for this, for controlling my life.”
“It was to keep you safe.”
“That’s what you say. But now look at me—I’m locked in your home, no freedom of my own. And that’s also to keep me safe. How much control am I supposed to tolerate? How much smaller is my life going to get?”
He says nothing, and I suspect this is his way of expressing his lack of an answer. Not one that I would like, anyway.
Sasha takes in a deep breath. “I’m not asking you to forgive me for keeping this from you. I wouldn’t deserve it, in any case.”
His words hang in the air. It’s strange seeing him like this. The man is normally so composed, so in control. But now, he’s standing before me like he isn’t sure what to do or say to make things right.
Part of me wants to tell him I don’t need his protection. My life is my own, and if that puts me in danger, then so be it. It’s what Ishouldsay. Instead, I feel myself tipping toward him.
“You scare me,” I say simply.
“I scare myself,” he says. “Every time I think about what I’d do to protect you.”
I shake my head. “That’s not love, you know.”
Love. Crazy to think such a word could even factor into what’s going on here. But it does, in a strange way.
“It’s the best I can do.”
There’s truth in his words, truth that hurts to hear. In those moments, he seems wounded, vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen him before. As if being pulled by gravity, I walk toward him.
Once I’m standing in front of him, I look into his eyes. His gaze searches mine, asking for forgiveness he feels he hasn’t earned. There’s something different about him. It’s still Sasha, still the man who’d burn this city to protect me and our children, but there’s something different, too. Ithits me what it is. Yes, he’d protect us. But for the first time, I understand his fear that he might not be able to.
I lift my hands, placing them on his chest, feeling the heat, the solidity, the steady heartbeat that proves he’s a man and not some monster.
“Don’t lie to me again. Please.”
“I won’t.”
Against my better judgment, against every wall I put up when he entered the office, I rise to my toes and kiss him. It’s not a kiss of forgiveness; it’s more like a truce. He places his hands on my hips, and it’s a touch of claiming and care. My fingers curl into his shirt.
I break the kiss first. He rests his forehead on mine, his taste lingering on my tongue. Heat spreads outward from between my thighs.
“Stay,” he says. “You don’t need to run.”
I don’t say anything. I just… stay.
He places his hand on my chin and tilts my face up towards his. “You can’t tell me all you want is a kiss.”
He grins, and God help me, I grin right back.
