“Promise me you won’t hurt your brother. He only wanted the best for you.”
“Promising you I won’t kill him is the best I can do, I’m afraid.” He shook his head. “Hewillhurt.”
I pressed my lips together, nodding.
“But, baby…” He rushed back to me, his face crumpling in pain as he took my hands. “Why did you start the fire in the first place? Why couldn’t you just break up with me?”
“I knew if I broke your heart, a part of you would hate me. If I died in what was deemed an accident, you’d forever remember me fondly. You wouldn’t take it personally, and you’d be able to move on with your life.” Why was the truth so much harderto tell than the lie? My stomach was in knots. “You have to understand, I managed to suppress my memories, but the pain was still there. Always. I knew my father and older brother found me useless and disappointing, that I was a burden to Tiernan. You were the only reason for me to stay alive, and I was scared once you found out I couldn’t be the wife you needed me to be I’d disappoint you too.”
“You wanted to die for me?” His throat worked, and a flash of that humanity crossed his beautifully scarred face.
I nodded, struggling to swallow. “I thought if I died in a fire, you’d eventually move on. You’d know I always loved you. So many people let you down. I didn’t want to be one of them.”
He closed his eyes, drawing a breath.
“I’m so sorry,” I croaked out, reaching to touch the jagged, coarse flesh of his cheek. The scars I had put there myself. “I was a coward and a fool.” Tears streamed down my cheeks, hot and heavy.
I’d been wanting to issue this apology for years. Had been convincing myself I hated him when really, I sought his forgiveness.
“I have tarnished your beautiful face, and though you will always be the most gorgeous man in the world to me, I know it changed the trajectory of your life.” I leaned forward and kissed those scars, every inch of them. He closed his eyes, his chest heaving as he tried to regulate his breathing, his pulse. He didn’t move. Didn’t waver. He’d been waiting for this, too.
“I’m sorry for your face,” I whispered. “And I’m sorry for your heartbreak. But I’ll never be sorry for putting you first. I’ll just try to do better when I do it next time.”
Those last words seemed to release all the pent-up emotions he’d been locking in. A guttural growl escaped him, primitive and elemental, and he reached to cup my cheeks, ripping mefrom his face, from kissing him, as he stared me in the eye. “I’d walk through fire every single day for you, Tierney.”
My chin wobbled, and I nodded, accepting his words.
“You poor thing.”
“Over the years, I tried to explain myself to you…”
“But I refused to listen,” he finished for me.
“And I can’t blame you.” I shook my head. “My weakness, my insecurities, almost got you killed.”
“Living without you was no life at all.” He narrowed his eyes.
“But I want you to know, no part of me ever did anything to hurt you. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. With or without me. You were my first friend. My first kiss. My first love…”
“Your last love too.” His expression smoothed into something dark and impenetrable. He rapped the table. “Write down the names of the men who hurt you in the camp. I’ll find them.”
I waited for the terror to kick in at his words. I never wanted to think of them again, let alone come face-to-face with them.
A few years ago, Tiernan had pledged to go back to Russia and deal with them. I’d made him promise not to. I wanted to bury that part of my history as deep and as far as I could. But these days, there was no escaping my past. It seemed to froth out of every corner of my thoughts, like an overflowing cesspool.
“They’re probably in Russia,” I muttered.
“They could be on Mars and I’ll still find my way to them.”
“I…” I hesitated. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” he growled.
“Because…”Say it. You think it, so say it.“Because I already told you, it was my fault that they did that.”
The person who said those words wasn’t twenty-nine-year-old Tierney. It was the girl I left behind in that camp, hungry,dirty, and so malnourished, she lost her uterus before she even got her period.
“Yourfault?”
