Page 49 of Mine to Ruin

He waves a hand in the air in a non-committal way. “We did.”

Did my grandfather admit there was another woman in his life, and it was not my grandmother?

“You cheated?” My hands tighten around the glass.

“Don’t act like it’s beneath you. Men and women cheat for various reasons. My reason was I couldn’t stay away.”

I stare at the man who is responsible for making me a halfway decent human being, shock shackling me to the ground. Loyalty is my credo, and I just found out the man I admired is anything but. I gnash my teeth and force myself to look into his eyes.

“Was it worth it?” I ask, irony dripping from my mouth, but the pain crossing his eyes has me stopping from saying more. Cheating is for the weak. He must see the disgust transforming my face.

“You can love a woman and be loyal to another.” He swirls the glass in his hand and takes a gulp. “The problem is, in the end, you have to choose. I chose wrong.”

“You chose my grandmother… how can it be wrong?”

“I buried my heart to do so.” He tips the glass back, and I have no fucking clue what he wants to achieve from this confession, because my respect for him teeters on the edge.

“Why are you telling me this. Why now?”

“Don’t repeat my mistakes,” he warns.

“I won’t.”

“Good, then.” But in his eyes, there is something dark as he adds, “Which one would you pick, Kian, the one you love, or the one you destroyed by loving someone else? Guilt is a powerful tool.”

My heart constricts in my chest, his words affecting me on a subconscious level.

After a long day spent between one conference after the other, I stride back into my apartment and stop on the spot.

She’s wearing my shirt, barefoot, her shoulder exposed, and the whole image screws with my head in a way I can’t undo. When that mess of curly hair tilts, and her eyes find mine, this is it, I don’t want anything and anyone else.

“Kian?”

“Yes, angel?” I fucking stammer. My woman makes me feel things that I never would’ve imagined possible. She thaws my heart with her sunny presence.

“Is everything all right?”

I throw the clothes on the bed and wrap my hands around her waist, putting my chin on her shoulder.

“Everything is perfect.”

With her it is, and for the first time, the loneliness gives away, and the darkness of my past cracks with her light. I press her to my chest, not understanding this urge to have her close, so close that the fear scrapes at my brain, not to let her in, but I can’t.

Her being melts into mine, and my lips seek her curls, and I know I would do anything to protect her.

But night is the time when my nightmares come out to play, and I detangle myself from her, and let out a heavy breath. I tried my best to keep her away, because my nights I spend awake, trying to shove one memory after the other away, and I never succeed.

I slump into my armchair, my gaze following the direction I left, where asleep she commands me to be and stay near her. I never had a chance to resist her, just pretended to.

I grab my phone and send a message, my fingers itching to get my hands on that scum that hurt her all those years ago.

Get me everything on Robert Gibson.

I’ll make him regret every day of his pathetic life.

Chapter 16

Ellia

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