Page 117 of About Love and Revenge

Unlike before, she's not waiting for me, and when I see the empty bed, my stomach churns.

“Elina.”

The scene looks like a replay of that second day I saved her from Naim, in Greece, only now the bastard is dead.

She will be safe now.

“Elina.”

“Here.” I hear her voice in the distance, and I go to the library.

She's curled up on the loveseat we always share when we read together. Knees bent towards her chest. Arms around her legs. At this moment, in the middle of the night, after one of the worst nights of my life, I finally understand what she means to me.

Before she walked into my world, I thought I no longer had the ability to process any feelings other than hate, but today, after facing the real risk of losing her, I realize that the mess inside me, that crazy mix of desire and need for both her body and soul, is love.

I let my eyes roam over her beautiful hair, which was pinned up earlier on top of her head and is now in total disarray. She's still in herparty clothes, but even from here I can see her makeup is smudged, which tells me she's been crying.

Despite having answered me, she still seems absent, trapped in some other world. She stares right through me, but the way she doesn’t meet my eyes is what worries me the most.

“Why won't you look at me?”

“Because I can’t.”

“You can’t? What does that mean?”

“We shouldn't be together. You don't want to be with me. I wasn't entirely honest that day in your office. People will laugh. He told me that today. Naim said he’ll let everyone know.” All this is said in a rush, and she ends up switching the consonants of two words.

The shame she displays for her difficulties hits me like a knife. I feel her pain deep in my soul.

I want to hold her in my lap and never let her go. I want to say that I will be by her side for the rest of our days and that I will never allow her to doubt herself. I’ll prove that I don't give a damn what other people think, because I know the wonderful woman I have by my side.

She is thirty years old and has lived a lifetime ashamed of herself, helpless, neglected by those who were supposed to protect her.

A beautiful, witty woman whose had her universe suffocated and allowed to atrophy until she has lost faith in herself.

I think about what has happened since that day in the library, in Greece.

Life tricked me.

When I moved from planning into acting on my revenge, I thought I knew all about the Argyroses, and Elina was included in that package back then. Over these months of living together, in which she’s given me a little more of herself every day, I realized that I knew nothing about the woman who has, without asking for permission, inserted herself under my skin, spreading through my bloodstream.

“I fought it,” I say, and I don't know if it's for her or for myself, but her head lifts to look at me. “I couldn't fight the attraction, but I fought my love for you because of your father. Not because I thought you were at all to blame for the things he did but because you would end up hating me when it all came to its conclusion.”

“I don't hate you,” she says, as if she didn't hear me telling her I love her.

“But you'll hate me when my revenge is complete.”

She doesn't respond, and I take another step closer before continuing to speak.

“I’ve fallen in love with you, my Elina. I didn't know the name of what I felt when I asked you to marry me, but I already loved you then.”

“You love me?”

“With everything that I am.” I kneel in front of her, still not touching her. “It took me a while to understand why I couldn't remember what it was like to love someone.”

She still doesn't move.

“After I was saved from the fire, all I had inside of me was hate. I didn't want hugs or any kind of comfort. Nothing that could make me weaker. I needed to avenge their deaths.”

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