Page 140 of The Witch is Back

His navy eyes were shuttered. “So, you took a wrong turn?”

As she gazed at him, everything inside her boiled up. Love and lust and apology and need. “No.”

“No?”

“I mean, yes.” She huffed an impatient breath. “I took a wrong turn. Before. But I’m on the right path again. Now.”

He looked confused and she didn’t blame him. Speeches really weren’t her thing.

So, she decided plain speaking was best. She longed to close her eyes so she didn’t have to look at him, but that was the cowardly option. Emma Bluewater was no coward. Not anymore.

She looked him dead in the eye. “I love you.”

He blinked. He looked shocked. He didn’t look like a man happy to hear a declaration of love.

Panic swamped her and she opened her mouth and let herself babble. “I’ve made bad choices all my life with you. I forced you to silence and I forced you to marry me and I kept secrets and didn’t trust you. You—you shared yourself with me in every way you could, and I was the coward. I was the one who was too scared to admit how fast I was falling and how much it would hurt if you left me again.

“I thought if I kept secrets between us, I could keep part of myself safe, so that when you left, I would survive. But then you found out and I realized it didn’t matter, I’d fallen for you anyway and it hurt like hell. When I learned that I could end the contract, I convinced myself it was the right choice for you, I was doing it for you, but really I thought if I left first, it wouldn’t hurt as much.”

The breath she took scraped her throat as she drank him in. “But I was wrong,” she admitted, broken. “It hurts more. I know you might not forgive me, or that you might not even love me or want me in that way, but I’m done being a coward and I’m done not believing I’m enough. So, I came here to tell you the truth.” She swallowed, bracing herself. “I love you. I want to be with you. I had to tell you, even if it’s a no.” A tiny nervous smile quivered. “It’s your choice.”

If she’d scored it, there would have been crescendoing music in the background. If this was a movie, the hero would light up, take her in his arms and dip her into a sweeping kiss.

But life wasn’t a movie.

And as her words fell into the chasm between them, her every cell sensitized and painfully exposed, Bastian pursed his lips. Turned. And walked back into the tent.

Well. She blinked back tears as pain clamped vicious jaws around her heart. Okay. That was her answer.

But as she turned blindly to walk away, to quietly go bury her head in the sand somewhere, the flap of the tent rustled and he came back out, holding a stack of letters in his hand.

She hesitated, hope even more painful than the heartbreak. Maybe he’d thought she’d left and needed to post some mail, and she looked even more of an idiot by thinking it was for her.

But his eyes were all about her, intense and serious enough to make her stomach jitter.

He handed her the stack.

A slight frown marred her forehead. “I don’t...” She looked down. At her own name.

Emmaline Bluewater.

She glanced up. “They’re for me?”

He nodded, jaw tight. But he didn’t explain.

She had the feeling of being in a play and having forgotten her lines. She hesitated. “Can I read one?”

“They’re yours.” His voice was as gritty as the air.

She looked around for somewhere to sit, settled on a chair that was in what passed for shade. A small table sat next to it and she placed all but the top letter on it. Sliding her fingers into the unsealed envelope, she pulled out the contents.

A birthday card?

She didn’t know if she looked as confused as she felt, but she soldiered on, flipping open the card.

“‘Dear Emmaline,’” she read in an unsteady voice. “‘I’m not sure if I’m going to mail this to you. I can’t even write down why I left you. Maybe you know, maybe you don’t. I can’t think about it. But I’ve always given you a birthday card, so while it might not be the best birthday, I hope you find some small way of being happy. I want you to be happy. I know it might not seem like it now, but I do. Have a cake for me. Bastian.’”

She lowered the card, stared. His chin dipped, indicating the stack.

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