Page 70 of This Haunted Heart

She released my shirt, and her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to run away from you. But I don’t want to be ruined by you either. I’m already ruined. Don’t you see? I lost you. I lostyou because I left you, and it ruined me. It destroyed me.”

I knew the thoughts whirling in my head would hurt her, but I needed to let them out of me. “It would be easier to pick between my revenge and your love if I could feel certain you were capable of the emotion.”

Her small intake of breath parted her lips and resounded in my ears. She looked like I’d struck her. “Then it’s not that you think I’m lying when I say I love you—when I say I’ve always loved you,” she said, voice full of wintery wrath. “You just think I’m incapable of love altogether?”

“Given the evidence, one can’t help but wonder.”

We stared each other down, neither flinching. Finally, she buckled. Turning on her heels, she fled from the library with brisk steps.

“There you go again,” I groused at her back, dogging her heels, “running away from me once more.”

“I’m not running,” she said through her teeth, stomping over the fallen doors. “I’mwalkingaway from you because you’re being a jackass and I’ve endured more than enough jackassery for one night.”

“I’m not done talking about this,” I grumbled, increasing my pace to keep up with hers. My footsteps echoed down the halls. Her stockinged feet remained silent.

She turned sharply into the drawing room. Beyond the front windows, evening filled the skies with dusky clouds. She made it as far as the nearest end table and she leaned over it, resting her weight on her hands. Her chest heaved.

“I don’t want to be finished,” I said somberly. “Talk to me, Rynn. Please.”

She shot me a glare over her shoulder. “You keep pretending like you were innocent of all wrongdoing. Like it was all usand never you, but you’re not innocent, Loch. If we aren’t going to let the baron carry all the blame, then you must take yours, too.”

“I’m not going to keep your blasted savings,” I growled at her. “I never was. I just needed to get you here, and I knew you’d never come willingly. It’s sitting in my nightstand beside my bed. It’s not even locked. You can go and claim it yourself right now!”

“That’s not what I’m talking about!” Her nostrils flared, then her throat bobbed. “The baron would hurt me, he would call me hideous names, and you would tell me not to be angry with him.”

My eyes dropped to the rug as memories of those words coming out of my young lips returned to me. Shame burned in my cheeks. “I was—”

“You defended him to me! He humiliated us both. He kept me locked up too long, he whipped me until I couldn’t sit down, he called me a crook and a harlot, and there were times that you defended his actions!”

“I shouldn’t have. It was wrong. But I was . . .” I searched for the words that might make things better, and my voice trailed away, because there was no justification to be found. I had done those things, and I could still picture her younger face contorting from the betrayal of it.

“But you were a boy?” she offered, one brow lifting toward her hairline. “Young and naïve and new to the world?”

With a sigh, I nodded. “He was the only father I knew. In my eyes, he was this big, strong man whom everyone listened to. I thought he must be right about some things.”

She turned to rest her hip against the end table, folding her arms over her breasts. “How come you’re allowed to be youngand stupid but I’m not?”

She made a fine point, one that landed in my chest like a dart striking true. I swallowed hard, guilt and anger melding to tighten my gut. “Whatever I’m guilty of, I didn’t leave you. I stayed with you, and I learned to do better. You thought I loved him more, but how could that possibly be true? Just look around you. Every inch of this place is a monument to my love for you.”

“I knew that you loved me . . . I was just worried that you shouldn’t, and I was terrified that he’d turn you against me.” Rynn shook her head. “I couldn’t stay there another minute. I still have nightmares about that house, and you wouldn’t run away with me. How many times had I suggested it by then? Every week since we were ten, at least . . . I don’t know how to convince you that I’m sorry. I don’t know how to fix any of this!”

“I never would have turned you away. I had every intention of marrying you!” My voice rose higher, ringing in the room. “Rynn, there’s no one but you. I’ve been bound to you since the night you crawled into my bed crying about Romeo and Juliet. There is no beauty in the world for me, no grace or sweetness, that could touch yours. Not in art, or the poetry you hate, not in all creation, not even in fiction. There is just you for me. Always you!”

She let out a whimper, then her spine pulled up straight. “It’s easier to believe that now,” she said, matching my volume, “than it was then when we were dependent on that monster and everything felt hopeless!”

“You could have built something with me. You could have builtthiswith me,” I said, gesturing to the elaborately decorated room and choking around the agony of that loss. “Instead, you left me to go off and sell yourself. And so cheaply, too.”

She huffed at that. “There was nothingcheapabout the way I sold myself! Don’t be obtuse. I had no family riches of my own. If I wanted to live well and depend on no one, what other choice did I have? I wasn’t ever going to risk serving another man like the baron. Who would hire a runaway like me? Who would teach me a trade? No one! And don’t forget that I was a wealthy woman before you got your hands on it! You’ve seen it. You know better.”

“Not even the smallest bone on your tiniest finger is worth only $35. Not to me,” I bit out. “You are priceless.”

“Priceless,” she said softly. “Then why won’t you forgive me?”

Silence.

She was that and more to me, and yet it wasn’t in me to give her the one thing she continued to beg for. I didn’t know where to even begin to give her something like that.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

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