Page 93 of Phantom Mine

The confession tumbles rapidly out of her like she can’t stop it, almost as if her conscience is trying to unburden herself. She doesn’t cry, but somehow the hollowness in her voice is even worse.

“So you see, I’m very familiar with guilt. It’s been eating me alive every day for the past eighteen months.”

I want to reach across the table for her, but something tells me she doesn’t want to be physically comforted right now.

“It’s not your fault,” I say, the words tearing out of me with such vehemence that Valentina startles. “Whatever happened to her wasn’t your fault. If you had only been gone for ten minutes, then you might have been with her when it happened, and then what? The same would have happened to you and you’d have both been lost, did you ever think about that?” My fingers brush gently against hers where they rest on the base of her glass. “Then where would I be? I’m sorry for what happened to your friend, but I’m happy we met and I’m happy our meeting meant that you two were separated, because I can’t bear to think about the alternative if you weren’t. The only person responsible is whoever caused your friend harm. It’s not your fault, Leni.”

She gives me a wholly unguarded look that takes my breath away. She’s always breathtakingly beautiful, but there’ssomething about her when she’s vulnerable that makes her incandescent. In those moments, she’s almost like a firefly in the dark of night. Her light flickers on, teasing me, then disappears, leaving me bereft and chasing after her, desperately waiting for the next time her light will come on, hoping this’ll be the time I’ll catch her.

A crackling sound yanks me viciously from my thoughts. The waiter is back and reaching across the table to light a second candle. The first burns with a high, steady flame, the wooden wick amplifying the sound of its burning.

Panic rises inside me like a tidal wave and threatens to sweep me away. The assault is sudden, like it always is. I fight against the collapse of my airway, struggling to overpower my physical reaction but used to waging this internal battle while needing to externally appear in control. I tear my gaze away from the flame and desperately try to remember where we were in the conversation, my mind suddenly blank.

“Say the words,” I repeat.

I suppress the impulse to run, to escape. My skin starts to crawl and a cold sweat breaks out at the back of my neck.

Valentina’s eyes flick down to the candles, then back to me. She brings her glass to her mouth and takes a long sip, much longer than anyone should for a wine of this caliber. I try to focus on that, on the way she twirls the stem between her fingers, not setting the glass down.

“It’s not my fault,” she says tentatively.

My body fights my command to remain calm. I ball my hands into fists beneath the table, digging my nails into the sensitive skin of my palms and redirecting my brain to latch onto the pain instead.

“Say it like you believe it,” I say through clenched teeth. I’m always surprised by how steady I manage to make my voicesound. Mercifully, I don’t think she can tell what’s happening inside me.

I’m this close to stabbing my knife into the still healing wound in my arm. It feels like that’s the amount of pain it’s going to take to distract myself enough to sit here as if there isn’t full fledged destruction happening inside me.

Valentina ignores me. Something volatile shifts in her gaze and she drains her entire glass instead.

She grimaces in discomfort as she swallows the bitter liquid, then wipes her mouth clumsily with the back of her hand, smearing her red lipstick across her cheek.

Intense hazel eyes track my expression as she flips her wineglass over and traps one of the candles beneath it. Her palm covers the foot of the glass, pushing it into the surface of the table and cutting off all oxygen until the flame slowly fizzles out.

Simultaneously, she wets the tip of her thumb and index with her tongue and reaches for the second candle. I jerk forward when she closes her fingers around the lit wick, but she has no reaction. The second flame goes out as easily as the first.

When she’s done, she grabs a candle in each hand, turns and hurls them at the wall behind her. They shatter, bursting into dozens of pieces of wax and glass.

I stare at her, the bizarreness of her actions smothering my panic.

“If you don’t like the smell of lavender, you could simply have asked the waiter to swap them out,” I say, trying to inject a note of humor in my tone.

But the change in my body is abrupt. The tension immediately leaves my body like it’s been sucked out. My heart settles, my mind quiets, and a peace washes over me like the dread of only moments ago never existed.

With it, clear-headed thinking comes back.

“Did you hurt yourself?” I snatch her hand and inspect her fingers, both of us ignoring the faint touch of mania in my voice. I rub the traces of soot away with my thumbs, relieved to find that her skin isn’t red or calloused beneath it. “You should be more careful,” I reprimand. “What were you thinking?”

For long moments, Valentina simply watches me.

Her gaze roams silently over my entire face and picks me apart with unnatural ease. Gradually, her eyes soften in a way that I’ve never seen before.

“I have PTSD, Matteo.” When I say nothing, she adds, “Did you think I wouldn’t realize what was happening to you?” Her fingers close around mine. She grips me tightly, like she can’t let go. Or maybe I’m the one holding on for dear life. “Do you think I don’tseeyou?”

My heart lurches into my throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I try to yank my hand back, but she keeps it clutched in both of hers.

“Pyrophobia,” she says.

I stiffen. “No.”

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