He shook his head. “It’s for the best.”
I let my head roll in his direction against the stone. “Are you alright?”
The corners of his lips turned up. All the light in his warm brown eyes had extinguished. “I’ve been better,” he answered and rubbed the magic-binding cuffs on his wrists. “You look well.”
I stifled a laugh. “No, I don’t. But I appreciate the lie.”
He shrugged in a downright playful manner and said, “I’m happy to see you, nonetheless.”
There he was.
I breathed out, “I’m so sorry, Em.”
“For what exactly?”
He was going to make me say it. Damn him. “You saw me through everything—always protecting me. You were my person for so long that, somewhere along the way, I forgot to let you be anything else. It was easier to keep you. I have been a selfish, terrible friend.”
His brow furrowed. “I wanted to be there for you. I loved you.”
Loved.
The word shouldn’t have cut.
“I wasn’t worthy of it. I let you watch as I almost married others, as I banished my feelings for you to the confines of privacy. I resented and punished you for not agreeing to run away with me when it was in neither of our best interests...”
“I think we were too young and inexperienced to knowhowto put each other’s best interests first,” he said with a sigh.
Then, he leaned down to touch his forehead to mine.
His body tensed slightly when he asked, “Do you love him?”
I held my breath.
Yes.
“Maybe.” Admitting it to him first felt wrong.
He rubbed my shoulder. “I have only ever wanted to see you happy, Syb.” Tears swelled, slipping down my cheeks.
As he backed away and dragged his thumb across my wet cheek, he added, “I hate to admit that, of all the matches I’ve seen you almost make, this one seems the most genuine. Even if it means losing you.”
“None of it is real. We’ll have an heir and then be mostly estranged. Love wasn’t on the table for me.”
He met my gaze with a hard stare of disbelief that made me question my own words. “When you were sick, he came looking for a way to help you. I have never seen a man more frayed at the seams. If that isn’t real, or love, then I don’t know what is.”
I reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize for where your heart is, Sybilla. I’ve held onto an idea of you that was unfair.” He ran his thumb over my stiff knuckles. “Is he good to you?”
It took all my self-control not to snort. Yet when I looked ahead, I couldn’t imagine life away from Krait. “He is goodforme. He challenges me—infuriates me—so much.”
Em nodded. “Stop giving him reasons to infuriate you so much.”
“Rude,” I huffed out. “And completely unrealistic.”
He smirked, and Firose stirred but did not wake.
I wished that I could still love a man like Emmerick—loyal, bighearted, open with his emotions. Instead, I’d fallen for a man who thought the worst of me, guarded his emotions and remained elusive.
