Page 30 of Fractured Loyalties
I study her. The light from the fireplace dances over her skin, bronzing the hollow of her throat. Her hair is disheveled from the ocean breeze. There’s a shine in her eyes that might be adrenaline or might be betrayal. I speak the next words with precision.
“You didn’t see what I saw. The way you flinched when you thought you were alone. The way you stopped breathing any time the wind hit the blinds wrong. And you didn’t know how you curled into yourself when you thought no one was watching.”
Mara’s lips part. But I go on.
“I told myself I was gathering data. Creating a safety net. But I wasn’t. Not entirely.”
“What were you doing?”
“Falling.”
That stops her.
The air thickens. She closes her mouth, opens it again. No words come.
“I watched,” I say, “because I didn’t know how else to be near you without undoing you.”
A beat passes.
Then another.
And then she says, “And now?”
“I still don’t know.”
She stands. Abrupt. Her body suddenly restless, pacing the length of the hearth like she can outrun the fire in her chest.
“You were like a stranger this morning,” she says. “Just a stranger.”
“I was never just a stranger.”
She stops.
“I know.” A pause, then, “I don’t know whether to hate you or trust you.”
I rise, slowly, and take a step toward her.
“Then do neither. Just let me be the one person in your life who doesn’t ask you to choose immediately.”
She blinks. Her throat flexes.
I close the distance between us. Just a breath away. I don’t touch her. I won’t—not unless she moves first.
But I lower my voice and speak into the space between us.
“Whatever else I am, Mara…I will never be the man who breaks you.”
And then—she exhales.
Not shaky. Not resigned. But relieved.
She leans into me.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Chapter 8 – Mara - Edge of Want
