“What is that supposed to mean?” I shot back.
“It means you’ve fought this from the moment you realized what you are to me. You’ve held yourself back,” he said, his voice low but steady, though there was a tightness to it now, something restrained beneath the surface as his gaze fixed on me with unwavering certainty.
“I held myself back through fear. Don’t you understand that?” I shot back, my chest tightening as the words came faster, sharper than I intended.
“You think I wanted you to be wrong?”
“You think I didn’t …” I cut myself off abruptly, the rest catching in my throat as doubt and frustration tangled together. Each of them refused to form into something I could actually say out loud.
His expression darkened instantly, his jaw tightening as something more dangerous slipped into his eyes.
“Didn’t what?” he pressed, stepping closer, his voice dropping lower, more thoughtful now. As though he was forcing the truth out of me whether I wanted to give it or not.
“Tell me.”
“You think I didn’t crave the way you looked at me?” I forced out, my voice softer now, though it trembled with the weight of it.
“Like I… I was your everything… like I was what you’ve been searching for?” My breath caught, but I pushed through it anyway.
“But believing I’m your fated doesn’t make it true,” I finished quietly, though the words still carried, even as something in my chest twisted painfully at the way he was looking at me.
He looked away at that, but I pushed on, forcing myself through the hardest part.
“Bo told me what happens… what would happen if you were wrong.”
“Yes, it seems he has been most helpful at coming between us,” he said angrily, bitterness creeping into his tone.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I shot back, frustration bleeding into my tone as I lifted my chin slightly.
“Like I shouldn’t know the things that could affect me…or you.”
“It was not his place,” he replied immediately, his voice firm, though something darker edged beneath it as his gaze hardened.
“No, you’re right,” I snapped, the words laced with resentment as I shook my head.
“It was yours…and you didn’t!”The accusation hung between us, heavy and undeniable.
“That’s because I know I’m not wrong when it comes to this Eliza…when it comes to you!”he shot back, his voicerising sharply, the force of it making me flinch before he caught himself. Regret flickered across his features almost instantly.
“I told you. I had proof,” I pushed, refusing to back down even as my pulse spiked.
“I looked in the mirror and…”
“And what you saw was exactly what Bo wanted you to see,” he cut in, stepping closer, his tone dropping again but losing none of its intensity.
“He was holding the mirror, not you, which makes it very easy to guide what it shows.” My mouth dropped at this before I started shaking my head in denial.
“That’s not what…”
“What?” he pressed, his voice tightening as he leaned in just enough to steal the space between us.
“You’re telling me he didn’t want you to come here? That he didn’t take that relic for a reason, that this hadn’t been the plan all along?”
“He was trying to save me,” I fired back, the words instinctive before I added to them,
“From…from you.”
The silence that followed felt different. He stilled, something unreadable passing through his expression, though the weight of his presence only seemed to deepen.
