He lifted one foot, hovering for a moment above the empty air.
The wind rose around him with a hollow cry, and somewhere within its restless voice he heard another.
Her voice.
The words she had spoken that night, fierce and unyielding and full of love.
You are worthy, Christian. You have always been worthy.
He stilled.
And I will spend the rest of my life regretting that I could not make you see it.
His foot hovered above empty air. One inch more and it would be too late. One inch more and the choice would be made.
I will never stop hoping that you’ll change your mind.
She was waiting.
Somewhere beyond the cliffs and fields and distant roads, Fiona Hart was waiting for him. She had said it herself—had promised it even as she walked away. Waiting. Hoping. Refusing to surrender her faith in him, even when he had surrendered it himself.
Could he truly betray that faith?
Could he step forward now, knowing she might spend the rest of her life wondering whether she had failed him—whether there had been something more she might have said or done?
I shall love you for the remainder of my days,he had written.
Had he meant it?
Or had it been nothing more than words—hollow promises scratched upon paper in a moment of weakness?
Christian stepped back from the edge.
The strength left his legs at once. He sank to the damp grass, breath tearing from his lungs as his heart hammered violently against his ribs. His hands trembled; his whole body shook with the terrible knowledge of what he had nearly done.
He had nearly ended it.
Nearly stepped into the void and let the sea claim him.
Nearly—
He bowed his head and pressed his brow to the cold earth.
And he wept.
He wept for Fiona, and for himself, and for the future he had so nearly cast away. He wept for the lonely boy he had once been, taught too early to believe himself unworthy of kindness. He wept for the man he had become—so shaped by that childhood that he could scarcely recognise love when it stood before him.
He wept until his throat burned and his body ached with the violence of it.
And when the storm of grief finally passed, something within him had changed.
He could not yet name it. He did not know whether it would prove strong enough.
But lying there upon the cliff, with the wind sweeping over the grass and the sea sounding far below, Christian Hale reached a quiet understanding.
He would not die here.
He would not surrender to despair.
