“How did you find out?” His voice is barely a whisper.
“The caves. It was emotional pain, as it turns out.” I blink and there it is again: Emmett in that candlelit chapel, vowing his life to someone who isn’t me.
He lets out a long breath. “Then you know I only did it because I was trying to protect Lydia and because I believed you to be dead. You have to believe me. Ineverwould have done this if I thought you were still alive. I would have clung to the hope of you until my dying breath.”
I throw up my hands, feeling half-crazed. “That’s not fair. You were always going to move on, and you should have, that’s your right.”
“That’s not true,” Emmett says.
“I’m not upset about the marriage—” I pause. “Well, I am, of course I am, but I don’t have a leg to stand on there. I’m heartbroken that you’ve been lying to me. You let me look foolish in front of everyone, in front of Lydia,” I argue.
He presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and lets out a breath. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I want to believe that,” I reply. “But does it matter what we feel? It’s happened. It’s done.” There’s a swooping sensation in my stomach like I’m falling from a great height. It’s like the illusion from the bridge spirit, when I saw Emmett as an old man. The future I imagined for us in tatters.
Emmett pulls away from me, the air between us suddenly as cold as ice.
“I understand,” he says flatly, his gaze pinned somewhere above my head.
“It’s just—” I struggle to find the words. “You’remarried. I don’t see how we overcome that.”
“So are you.” He looks at me, bewildered.
“But I never lied to you about it! Every moment I’ve been in the Otherworld, you’ve been lying to me.”
“To protect you!”
“Or because I’m as disposable to you as the rest of them?” It’s my worst fear, finally voiced aloud: that I am simply one in a long line of Emmett De Vere’s girls. Another naive debutante who fell under his spell and let him make me believe I was special.
The words strike him. His voice is a whisper now, anger evident in every word. “Accuse me of anything you wish—you’re right, I’ve ruined everything—but don’t accuse me of indifference.”
It physically hurts to look at his face. I can’t stand another rejection. I’m simply not strong enough.
“She doesn’t even care about me.” Emmett’s voice is louder now. “She was one of Bram’s lovers before he married you and Lydia and she’s jealous and petty and out for revenge. She married me to hurt him.”
“I saw you with her, inthatbed!” I point to where it looms in the middle of the dark room. “Why were you with her after I arrived here? I can understand when you thought I was dead, but I was alive. I’djustkissed you.”
Emmett wrings his hands. “We shared a bed. I did not touch her,I swear it. I couldn’t. It’s you I want. Only you.”
“I don’t know what to do.” My confession is thick with tears. “What if what we had back in England wasn’t meant to last? It all happened so quickly.” I don’t mean it.
“Do you want me to let you walk away?” he asks softly.
“Yes,” I lie.
The muscle in Emmett’s jaw flexes as he clenches his teeth together.
He says nothing as I walk out the door, but I hear a crash come from his room just seconds after it shuts behind me.
It’s nearly dawn when my door swings open. I jump in fright but immediately relax when I see it’s just Lydia.
“How was the revel?” I ask.
She perches on the edge of my bed, her brown eyes lined with gold the same shade as her gown.
She sighs as she sees my swollen face. “I’d ask which one of them left you in this state, but I already know it was Emmett. He’s just been to see me.”
“How is he?” I can’t help asking.
