Page 124 of The Scandal You Started
“But I did.” He stood tall and confident. “And now I do not wish to be parted from you.”
Rayna couldn’t decide if she wanted to yank her hair out or yank her heart out so it would stop responding to him.
“You can’t stay, Dominic. How many times do I have to say it? No one has ever been allowed to stay. They won’t let you.”
“Why not? I understand that I could not remain entirely in the future. My family and title are in the past. But why can I not have both with you? I could lead a life then and have one here too. With you.”
“For fuck’s sake, you can’t have both,” she snapped. “You have to live the life already dictated for you.”
He slashed a hand between them. “My life has not been dictated for me! It is mine to choose what to do with it.And I choose you.”
“Well, don’t choose me!”
He jerked a step towards her. “I do, and I will, dammit. So history will have to change itself, for I will go nowhere you are not.”
“History can’t be changed. You can’t permanently be taken out of it.” She threw a hand towards the door. “That’s why you have to go back. That’s why they’ll make you go back. They’ll wipe your memories of the last few months and send you back like they do with every Study. To make sure history happens the way it was meant to.”
“They will wipe my memories?” he echoed, frozen and shocked.
Rayna shouldn’t have told him that. But she’d already done so much she shouldn’t have with him, so what was the point of hiding one more thing? It wasn’t as if she’d have a job at the lab after word got out about the mess she’d created with Dominic. They’d fire her instantly.
She was waiting for a roaring battalion of anger to rise against him for ruining what she’d asked him not to. But either it was lost in the fog of panic, or it was taking its time building its forces, because it wasn’t yet surfacing with any real strength.
“Yes,” she said evenly.
His brows crashed down over thundering eyes. “You did not inform me of this.”
“You’re not supposed to know. That’s the point. Because what Study would willingly give up the memories of the future? They’d want to keep them. But what if they used them to change their lives? That could mess with the timeline, so your memories will be wiped.” Her heart squeezed out a painful throb. “You won’t remember me.”
But of course, the stupidly stubborn man said, “I will.”
“Dominic,” she said in tired frustration and swung away from him.
Rayna pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, trying to find the words that would make him see how impossible what he wanted was. A gentle hand snaked around one of her wrists, rotating her back towards him. His eyes bore into hers as he nudged her chin higher.
“I could not forget you, my love,” he said, so damn sure of himself. “My heart would know what it had lost. But it will not come to that. We shall find a way for this to work. For I do not believe it is impossible. Mr Griffin would have warned me to give up immediately if it were.”
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. “You told Uncle Declan?”
“I did not tell him as such, no. He overheard me talking to Beast and inferred the rest of it. But I was honest with him about my feelings.”
Her head pounded as she tried to understand what he was saying, but dread was making her thoughts spin.
Because if Declan knew, then he would have told Victor.
Which meant Victor knew how badly she’d broken his trust. And that made her feel sick.
Rayna tore away from Dominic. “No one was supposed to know.”
“I know.” He lowered his hands to his sides. “And I apologise for that, but he offered his support—”
“Of course he would. Uncle Declan and V, they’ll always put family first. But I don’t want them to. I don’t want them to lose their jobs because of me. Why don’t you see that?”
His hands came up to her jaw. “I do. Of course I do, my love. I understand. But it does not have to come to that.”
“You keep saying that, but you don’t actually have a plan, Dominic!”
Silence.
