He drew a slow breath, his gaze still fixed on the dark water below.
“I thought writing it would settle the matter in my own mind,” he admitted quietly. “That if I laid everything before him plainly—my intentions, my honourable offer—then I might feel… justified.”
“And you do not?”
He shook his head once.
“Your father believes I have corrupted you. That I have taken advantage of my position to compromise you and bind you here.” His voice remained calm, but there was a strain beneath it now. “When I first read those words, I dismissed them as the anger of a man who does not know me. But the more I have considered them…” He exhaled slowly. “The more difficult it becomes to dismiss them entirely.”
“That is nonsense.”
“Is it?” He finally turned to look at her. “You came here under my protection. You stayed under my roof. The world will say exactly what your father has said—that I used my influence, my title, my isolation here to place you in a position from which your reputation cannot recover.”
“I stayed because I wished to stay.”
“Yes.” His voice softened. “But the world will not believe that.”
“I do not care what the world believes.”
Christian’s gaze dropped briefly to the ground between them.
“That is because you have not yet had to live with the consequences.”
Fiona’s temper stirred.
“I am not a child, Christian. I understood the risks perfectly well.”
“And yet I asked you to take them.”
She stepped closer. “And I agreed.”
“That does not absolve me.” His jaw tightened slightly. “I should have been the stronger one. I should have insisted you leave before matters went this far.”
“Leave?” Fiona repeated sharply. “You cannot possibly mean—”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I do.”
The wind swept across the cliffside, lifting the edges of his shirt.
“I have been asking myself a very simple question since this afternoon,” he continued. “Whether loving me is worth what it will cost you.”
“It is.”
“You say that now.”
“I say it because it is true.”
Christian looked out again toward the sea.
“I spent most of my life believing that happiness was not meant for me,” he said slowly. “That if I kept to myself, harmed no one, demanded nothing of the world, then perhaps I could pass through it quietly enough to avoid further damage.”
“And then I arrived,” Fiona said softly.
“Yes.”
A faint, bittersweet smile touched his mouth.
“And I forgot that rule entirely.”
