He leaned forward, and she knew he was about to kiss her. Knew, too, that she couldn’t allow it. She pulled back before their lips could touch, and he immediately retreated, releasing her and sitting back on his heels. “I am sorry.”
She stood, placing distance between them, Trotula coming to stand sentry beside her. She let her fingers work the dog’s soft ears for a long moment, unable to look at Cross. Unable to stop looking at him. “I don’t know why I told you that.”
He rose, but did not come closer. “About Beavin?”
She looked down at the floor. “It’s silly, really. I don’t even know why I thought of him. Except . . .” She trailed off.
He waited a long moment before prompting her to continue. “Except . . . ?”
“I’ve always been different. Never had many friends. But . . . Beavin didn’t mind. He never thought I was odd. And then he disappeared. And I never met another person who seemed to understand me. I never thought I would.” She paused. Gave a little shrug. “Until you.”
And now you’ll go away, too.
And it would hurt more than losing an imaginary friend ever could.
She wasn’t sure she would be able to manage it.
“I can’t help but think,” she started, then stopped. Knowing she shouldn’t say it. Knowing, somehow, that it would make everything harder. “I can’t help but think . . . if only I’d . . .”
He knew it, too. “Don’t.”
But she couldn’t stop it. She looked up at him. “If only I’d found you first.”
The words were small and sad, and she hated them, even as they brought him to her—his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks and tilting her up to him. Even as they brought his lips to hers in a kiss that robbed her of strength and will and, eventually, thought.
His long fingers threaded through her hair, holding her still as he lifted his lips, met her gaze, and whispered her name before taking her mouth again in long, lavish strokes. Again and again, he did the same, whispering her name against her lips, her cheek, the heavy pulse at the side of her neck, punctuating the word with licks and nips and sucks that set her aflame.
If only she’d known that she might find someone like him.
A match.
A love match.
They did exist. And here was the proof, in her bedchamber. In her arms. In her thoughts. Forever.
She closed her eyes tight at the thought, even as the tears came, and he sipped at them, whispering her name over and over, again and again. “Pippa . . . don’t cry, love . . . I’m not worth it . . . I’m nothing . . .”
He was wrong, of course. He was everything.
Everything she could not have.
She pulled away at the thought, pressing her palms flat to his chest, loving the warmth of him, the strength of him. Loving him. Looking up at his wild grey eyes, she whispered, “My whole life . . . two and two has made four.”
He nodded, utterly focused on her, and she loved him all over again for paying attention . . . for understanding her.
“But now . . . it’s all gone wrong.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make four anymore. It makes you.” Heat flared in his gaze, and he reached for her again, but she pulled back. “And you’re to marry another,” she whispered, “and I don’t understand.” A fat tear escaped, expelled by fear and frustration. “I don’t understand . . . and I hate it.”
He brushed the tear away with his thumb, and said, achingly soft, “It’s my turn to tell you a story. One I’ve never told another.”
Her heart in her throat, she met his gaze, knowing with keen understanding that what he was about to say to her would change everything.
But she would never have dreamed he’d say what he did.
“I killed my brother.”
He’d never said the words aloud, but somehow, remarkably, saying them to Pippa was easier than he imagined.
Saying them to Pippa would save her.
She had to understand why they couldn’t be together. She had to see why he was utterly, entirely wrong for her. Even as every ounce of him ached to claim her as his own, forever.
And the only way to show her these things was to show her the worst in him.
She stilled at the confession, her breath catching in her throat as she waited for him to go on. He almost laughed at the realization that it hadn’t occurred to him that she might not immediately exit him from the room. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might want more of an explanation.
That she might believe in him.
So few ever had.
But here she was, waiting for him to continue, quiet, serious, scientific Pippa, waiting for all the evidence to be laid out before drawing her conclusions.
Perfect Pippa.
His chest tightened at the thought, and he turned away from her, imagining that he could turn away from the truth. He went to the doors he’d left open, closing them softly as he considered his next words. “I killed my brother,” he repeated.