Page 71 of Forbidden Deception

Tears well in my eyes at his words, and I choke out a laugh.

“You and your words…”

“I will happily take these tears if they are because of my sweet words to you but never if they are because of something harming you. I will destroy the world to keep that smile on your face.”

The first tear slips from my eye.

He reaches forward and swipes a tear away.

“Stop crying, please,” he whispers, placing a kiss on the corner of each of my eyes.

“How could I not? I can’t believe you are the same person I met on my first day. You may look hard and strict, but you care so deeply for those around you that it’s melting my heart.” I chuckle, sniffling.

I grab his hand and the blanket and walk us both towards the small floor to ceiling window of the living room. The fading sun dips behind the buildings in front of us, and the rain has started to pick up.

I sit down on the floor and pull Rafael down with me.

I cover us both with the blanket and lean my head against his shoulder.

We stay like this, the rush of cars driving past down the road and the wind howling outside filling the silence.

“I love this moment, Rafael,” I whisper into the quiet of the night, his body warming my heart, my soul, and my body.

“Out of everything I have done for you, you love a quiet evening in your apartment in front of your window the most?” he says, and I just simply smile.

“I loved all that, too, but I guess I needed someone to share my silence with.”

“I used to hate the loud rooms in my home growing up. I often preferred the quiet of my mum’s art studio,” Rafale says quietly.

I keep my ears perked. He almost never talks about his mother or his childhood.

It’s either he tells me everything or he doesn’t.

“Dakota often gave all her attention to Eiran and Khyros, so I felt alone, and for years I just felt so left out despite Dad and Mikko. But a mother’s love will always be something I craved.

“But there were days when Mikko saw something in my eyes, possibly the sadness or the heartbreak from witnessinga mother’s love and never knowing what it is like to be on the receiving end of it. He used to give me pieces of Mum, and that would bring tears to my eyes. Me, a guy who never dares to show his emotions to the world.” Rafael swallows.

“One time, he talked about the field of sunflowers behind our parents’ home where Dad visits day after day. Dakota couldn’t fill the void in his heart. She couldn’t love him the way my mum, Sierra, did. She couldn’t give him the support he needed. It pained me to see him lost in his memories of her, and Dakota not caring.”

Rafael’s arms wrap around my waist, and they tighten as if I am keeping him grounded to reality, to the present, and not the times when he felt a piece of himself missing.

“I wish… Sometimes I wish she were here to see how much we tried to keep ourselves together. We are all doing okay, but sometimes I see how we all miss Mum. Sometimes I think I feel her soul lingering and wandering around our home. I miss her a lot. Nothing ever made it better until you came waltzing into my life. It took me a while to realise just how much you are filling that void inside me.”

He turns to me, his eyes filled with emotions, an unspoken torrent of sorrow, hope, and something else I can’t quite place. It’s as if everything he’s been holding back has found an escape, spilling over in a flood that words could never contain.

He sucks in a soft breath, his breathing shaky as is his hand on my hip.

“I think this could be why Mikko married Liya. He needed someone, and she did, too. They got together because they understood each other so well, and now I realise exactly why he has been such a fool in love; why, out of all of us, he is the one who feels the most at ease. He found someone to share his pain, his struggles.” Rafael drops his head to my shoulder.

“I found that in you, Venezia. Thank you for being yourself. You’ve mended parts of my heart that you didn’t even know were broken, filled parts you weren’t aware were missing.” Another shuddering breath leaves him.

“Your mum and I both like sunflowers?” I whisper, trying to distract him, to help make his confession a little easier.

Rafael’s arms tighten around my waist, and he pulls me over to his lap, my knees on either side of his hips, hitting the wooden floor. He looks up at me, his hair a mess and a lazy look in his eyes that makes my heart pound.

“Yes, she used to love painting them, too. She named one for me without ever meeting me.”

A smile pulls at my lips. “She loved you way before you were born. She loved you enough to leave pieces of herself behind. She loved you, which is exactly why she was thinking about you, painting for you hoping to meet you not realising how much you would cherish it all,” I whisper, meeting his eyes.

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