She pursed her lips.
Moving to sit beside her, I nudged her shoulder with mine. “Okay, you want to know? Fine. My brain is swollen. The doctor gave me some rules that I should’ve followed, but I didn’t.” I shrugged. “I paid the consequences. Simple as that.”
She turned to face me, her gaze sparkling with new sprung anger. “No, not simple as that. What else. You’re keeping something else from me. I want to know. Right now.”
What do you want to know?
The fact I will murder my own flesh and blood in a few days?
The fact I made a promise to hand my life over to a cause that I believe in completely but now feel as if it’s controlling me?
Or the fact that no matter what I do with my life, it’s never enough? That I always second-guess—think I could’ve done better—done more?
I massaged my temples. She doesn’t need to know any of that. “I’m having trouble with certain parts of my life.”
“Like what?”
“Like trading and mathematics,” I said quietly, knowing the moment I said it aloud, Cleo would pity me. But it was the easiest detail to give.
“Oh, God, Arthur.”
And there it was.
Fucking pity.
“But you’ve always relied on numbers.”
No shit.
“I know.” Forcing myself to sound optimistic, I said, “But the doctor assured me there’s no reason why it won’t come back, so … I’m not gonna dwell on it.”
Cleo didn’t respond.
Instead, she stood up and held out her hand. “Come on.”
Eyeing her cautiously, I stood up and placed my hand in hers. She was so tiny, so delicate, so breakable, yet strong enough to put up with me and my mess. And my life was a fucking mess. With more on the horizon.
Her green eyes remained glossy and deep, but the pity I feared faded into conviction and courage.
My cock twitched, setting fire to every bruise and twinge.
Stop that.
No sex. No orgasm. No pleasure until I got this under control.
Closing the distance, her arms wrapped around me.
My heart clenched, then drowned in love for her.
I squeezed her close. Goddammit, it’d been a rough few days. All I wanted to do was slip inside her again, make her shatter, and then sleep. Preferably in that order.
But she wasn’t on the menu.
Her tiny fingers landed on my chest. “Remember when I first arrived? You tried to climb these stairs with that knife wound bleeding you dry and almost passed out on the first rung.”
I kissed the tip of her nose. “I was trying to run away from you.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
Her face fell. “Because you hated me.”
Christ, no.
“Wrong. It was because you made me feel something I never wanted to feel again. I wanted you—fuck how I wanted you—but I hated that I wanted you, too.”
She inhaled hard. “Why?”
“Because by wanting you, I was being a traitor to your memory.” I held her away from me, staring into her eyes. “Guilt is as much a part of me as breathing. Every damn day I suffered with it, knowing I’d ruined us, your family, myself. Every time I craved company, I drowned in guilt because I couldn’t have you. I could never have the woman I loved because of what I’d done.”
She stretched on her toes and kissed me. “How many times do I need to tell you? You didn’t do any of that.” Her fingertips circled my heart. “Cut out that guilt. It has no reason to be there anymore.”
Unable to speak, I tucked her into my side and together we climbed the last step and headed toward the bedroom. Once inside, I spun her around and undid the zipper holding her black dress in place. She didn’t argue as I slid the metal teeth apart and let the material slip from her shoulders.
Her gorgeous body of scars and ink stole the remaining intelligence I had left. I morphed back into the boy I’d been—a boy who’d never forgotten his perfect soul mate and now somehow had her for all eternity.
Gathering her close, I kissed her shoulder, slinking my hands to massage her back. “I never let anyone else into my heart, yet the second I saw you bound and gagged and covered in mud, I fell in love with you all over again. I cheated on you with you. I found comfort from missing you with you. And it fucking killed me to think I was moving on when all I wanted to do was live in the past.”
She captured my face. “I hate that I left you behind. I hate that I caused you so much pain. But I can say that even though I didn’t remember, I never stopped loving you. Your eyes haunted my dreams. Your touch and smell were phantoms in my life—tugging me back to you.” She kissed me, her tongue hesitantly licking my bottom lip. I opened for her, welcoming her taste into my mouth.
She relaxed into the kiss. “There was never anyone else for me.”
“You could’ve moved on,” I panted, never tearing my lips away from hers, kissing her and feeding words directly into her mouth. “You had a choice.”
Her fingers dug into my cheeks. “I never had a choice, Art. Never.”