Page 96 of The Billionaire's Bride
I stare toward the burning house, then back at her.
"No," she shakes her head, "no, no, no." She scrambles away from me.
"Ava, stop."
"Oh, no," she snaps, "don't you dare ask me to stop. If Edward’s in there, I am going in." She staggers to her feet, hobbles toward the flames. I spring up, dash after her and grab her arm, "He’ll be fine. He said he’d be right behind us."
Just then a creaking sound reaches us. We glance up to find flames shooting up from the roof of the house.
"No!" she screams. "No, Edward!"
She tries to break free and I throw my arms around her, "Shh, Ava, please…"
"No!" she screams and turns in my arms. "I can’t let anything happen to him, Baron." She grabs my collar and rises up to tiptoe, "I love him, don’t you understand?"
Something cold stabs at my chest. I glance down at her sobbing face.
"You love him?"
"Yes." She sobs, "Please, help him, Baron, please… He went in there to save me. If anything happens to him, I'll never be able to forgive myself. Please, Baron… Please."
I circle her wrists, pull them away from my collar, before I release her. Then I brush past her and walk into the burning house.
33
Edward
I glance over my shoulder at the flames that lick the far end of the corridor. If I am going to die, at least, I know that she is safe. That I’ll be sacrificing myself for her.
The crown molding catches fire. The flames edge toward me as I watch, trapped in my own personal hell.
If there was going to be a way for me to go, then it makes sense it would be like this—bathed in fire, purified of my sins. The cross that I have borne since the incident. The event that had scarred my life, had ruined me for any relationship… Until her. She had given me a reason to haul myself out of the unfeeling, unseeing existence I had settled for.
I believed I had found my calling… And in those years, I had found a certain kind of peace, dedicating myself to the higher good… Focusing on everything else…Anything else,but the festering mass of pain deep inside that had only grown, bigger, wider, more solid with time... Until it had lodged in my gut, had weighed me down, anchored me to a state of being from which I couldn’t escape.
If becoming a priest was the single most courageous act I had undertaken, then walking away from everything familiar was the riskiest one. One I hadn’t hesitated to take, because the path led to her. She saved my life, and I willingly sacrifice myself for her…and in that…there is a certain poetic justice.
I will die, consumed by the fire that will finally purify me. That will wipe away the hate I carry deep inside, the scars, which are all that remain of the boy I had once been.
And she won’t be alone. She has Baron to protect her, to take care of her. She’ll be safe and happy.My woman and my best friend.I clutch my fingers at my sides. My woman.Mine.Fuck… I close my eyes. Why is it I find it so difficult to let go of her, even now?
Baron is right for her. He isn’t tainted, like me. He is right for her. He has to be. Fucking Baron. Seems, he was always destined to come out ahead of me…It’s not a fucking competition, Ed.
Of course, it is. The race to capture the heart of a woman who means so much to me… It’s right I don’t win this one. I don’t deserve her.
"Priest, motherfucker."
I snap my eyes open, turn to find Baron, racing up the stairs.
"The fuck you doing, asshole?" He pants as he comes to a stop next me.
"What the fuck is it to you?" I scowl.
"I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do to yourself, but the woman out there... She’s losing her shit, and if you don’t get out of the fire, she’s walking right into it with you."
I lower my chin to my chest, "I don’t fucking deserve her, man."
"You can say that again." Baron growls, "But it’s not for you or for me to decide. She gets the final choice in this matter." His jaw tics. "And she chooses you."
