Page 34 of Marrying the Gardener
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It’s a game of give and give.
Kaleb
“I am sober.” Dutifully, I nip at Crimson’s full bottom lip. “I still like you.”
Dutifully, she endures, gripping my clothes to brace herself as she practices the ordeal that is kissing me. “That’s not a funny joke, Kaleb.”
Every cell in me wants her, but I pace myself, keeping the fact she might be aro and ace forefront in my brain as I pinch her chin and slant my mouth over hers. “I’m not joking, Rose-red.”
A tiny sound leaves her, so I break away, lose myself in the trance caused by her rising and falling chest.
Soft, I ask, “Is this still exhausting?”
“Extremely.” Looking haunted, Crimson draws breath past her lips, then she attains composure, and frowns. “Which is not helped by your love confessions.”
“I’ve yet to mention love.”
“Likeconfessions, then, Mr. Semantics.”
“No, no. I do love you. Love is fine. It’s just rude that you stole my confession from me.”
She shoves out of my arms.
I am now cold.
“Goodnight, Kaleb.”
“Crims—”
“Goodnight,” she says, sharp as a knife. “You did well today. You’ll do better not to tease me. It’s…uncharacteristically unkind.”
I catch her hand before she can get away. Firm, I hold tight. “I’m not teasing you, Crimson. What would you have me do to convince you?”
Her brow arches. “What would I have you do to convince me that you love me enough to offer me everything you have in exchange for nothing, even though it’s been less than a week since we first spoke?”
“I’ve seen you time and again over the past month and a half coming and going from the Bachelor manor to visit Crisis as you help plan her wedding. You have struck me to my soul. Give me a chance to love you, however you desire to be loved, and I shall forfeit myself into your hands for the rest of my life.”
Pulling free from my grasp, she pats my shoulder. “Honey, I think you need to go to sleep again. Something still hasn’t rebooted in your brain since you had all that whiskey.”
I had two glasses two and a half hours ago.
This direct approach isn’t working. I don’t think it’s just a trust issue, either. She’s completely cut off from the concept of and the desire for a relationship—in any capacity. My usual tactics have no ground here. She is immovable. Singularly focused. Unwilling to hear out any other options.
If I have to witness… No. If I have toparticipatein another display like earlier today, I don’t know how long it will take before I ask Viktor to destroy the Nightingales so completely there won’t be anything left for a will. I’m not strong enough to watch her pretend to be a moron and subject herself to abuse like this.
I’m justnot.
I understand why Crimson doesn’t want to be indebted to anyone, not even my brothers who clearly care about her as a friend. Even though they’remy brothers, I feel the weight of leaving them constantly. I feel indebted to Viktorconstantlyjust because he loved me enough despite all my sins to bring mehome, just because he still loves me. Even now.
It’s terrible. It’s suffocating. It puts this distance I don’t know how to close between me and the most important people in my life.
Yet, if it means saving Crimson, I will increase that weight of debt tenfold and ask him for her salvation.
It’s far easier to destroy this rotten family than it is to take over their assets. Even without conflicts and power plays, even through a will, it’s so much easier to just destroy them.
Crimson has to know that.
