Page 51 of Tarnished Reign

No, I didn’t fall in love.

I did realize something, however. Something that’s made me think I should stop this before it begins.

I could.

I might.

I walked to the edge of the precipice, and the moments our mouths met, I looked out into the deep abyss of elemental feelings.

If I fall in love, and she finds me wanting—finds the real me, the soul of me—somehow lacking, she will walk away, and I’ll have been deserted once more.

She doesn’t even know about my disability. She doesn’t know that sometimes I have banged my head against the wall to stop the screaming. That I’ve contemplated ending it in the worst, darkest moments just to get some silence. A thought that is so eerily similar to that of my father it makes my blood run cold.

What I wouldn’t give for a moment’s peace. Is that what he thought?

I’ve searched for it for the longest time, and in this room, I felt it. For the first time in years, when her lips touched mine, peace washed over me.

It’s not that the ringing stopped; it just didn’t matter.

The ringing, and wind rushing, and endless fucking noise just didn’t matter.

All that did matter was her. Softness. Mint. Cherry.

Christ, I want to go after her and tell her to go to my cabin and wait there. Then, I want to spend days getting lost in her.

I can’t.

I need to take a beat to think about this. If I go any further, I risk destroying one of us, or both of us.

I’ll not live up to what she wants, and she will get angry, sad, and then she’ll leave. Something beautiful will have turned ugly.

Glancing back at the documents, I sigh and massage the gap between my eyebrows, trying to smooth the encroaching tension headache away.

She needs to be safe, and I can keep her that way. Physically. What I can’t do is protect her heart.

She’ll fall hard and fast. She’s that kind of person. Open. Kind.

I’m closed and hard.

Then she will see the real me, and it will end, and it will be ugly.

Fuck. I need to focus on the things I can control right now, and work is the easiest of those to deal with.

The papers on the desk grab my attention again. I stare at them and then narrow my eyes.

What the actual fuck?

There in black and white are the words that keep turning over in my mind:

Hana will not help procure more women now that she’s married that fucker. I need to find a new woman, someone who the other women will initially trust.

She was helping those fuckers procure women before she married Adriana’s father? Despicable bitch.

My phone beeps. It’s Damen.

“Yes.”

“Got something to tell you.”

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