Page 246 of Vicious Temptation

Crouching in front of the headstone, I run my fingertips over the cool granite.

“Olá, Pai. I know I haven’t come to see you in a while, and I’m sorry.” Seeing his name this close makes it difficult to keep my eyes focused on the letters. “I wanted to, though. You know that, right?” I lower my head and take a breath before continuing. “I was afraid to face you.”

A tear lands on the granite beneath my hand.

“Because I’m not the man you wanted me to be. I thought I was. For a long time, I believed I was doing what was right and saving people, just like you did.” I drag my thumb across his name. “But I was wrong.”

The admission is harder to make here than it has ever been anywhere else.

“I was lied to, but that’s not an excuse. Deep down, I knew things weren’t right, and I kept doing what I was told because believing in the mission was easier than questioning what it was turning me into.”

I look over my shoulder at the rental car.

Remi is still inside, watching from a distance. She gave me the space to come to him alone without ever making me feel like I actually am.

“Then I met her.”

Just looking at her makes me smile.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Her name is Remi. She’s the one I’ve been telling you about.” I turn back to my father and rest my hand on his headstone. “I’ve never felt this way before. Is this what Mom made you feel? Like your whole heart was living inside someone else? Like you could see your entire future in their eyes?”

My smile slowly disappears.

“Because that’s what I feel when I look at her, Pai.” I lower my gaze to his name again, knowing what I have to admit next. “It’s killing me because I don’t know how to save her without destroying us.” I slam my fist against the rock. “You should be here!”

The anger comes before I can stop it, years of it surfacing in four words.

“If you had been here, I wouldn’t have become this person. I would’ve had you to tell me when I was fucking up. I would’ve been a man who deserved her love instead of someone who has to lie to keep it.”

Tears spill down my face as I brush my thumb over the letters of his name.

“Everything would have been different.” I stare at his name, then look back at Remi. “But I know I still would have found her. Because she’s mine.” My voice drops as I turn back to him. “I think…I think I was born to love her.”

Saying it out loud brings a small laugh through my tears.

“Is that crazy?” I press my palm against the stone. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t lose her. But no matter how many times I replay it in my head, I end up in the same place.” I wipe my face, but the tears keep coming. “I’m running out of time. Everything we’ve built is about to come crashing down around us, and when it does, it’ll be because of me.”

I try to keep talking, but my voice gives out.

For years, I’ve convinced myself I could carry every choice I made and face the consequences when they came. Now Remi is part of those consequences, and I can’t pretend I’m strong enough to lose her.

I brace both hands against my father’s headstone as the first sob breaks free. Another follows before I can recover, and soon, I’m crying too hard to hold myself upright.

I don’t hear Remi approach. She touches my shoulder, and when I look up, she’s standing above me, tears running down her cheeks.

She doesn’t ask if I’m okay or tell me to stop crying. Lowering herself to the grass, she wraps her arms around me. I turn into her and bury my face in her shoulder, holding on as she slowly runs a hand over my back. She stays with me until the sobs finally subside and I can breathe again.

When I’m ready, she stands with me.

“He was a good man,” I say, looking at my father’s name. “Better than me.”

“That’s not true.” Remi reaches up and wipes the tears from my face.

I look down at her and see nothing but certainty. I know she means it, and that’s exactly the problem. She’s fallen for a man who has never given her the chance to decide whether she could love him, given the truth.

“Do you think he’d be proud of me?”

“I know he would.”