Page 1 of Savage Love

Elena

Elena,

If you’re reading this, I’ve left for New York. I’m sorry for the early departure, but I think we said everything that could be said last night. I meant it all—you deserve better than me, better than someone carrying the weight of a former life on his shoulders, who can’t be all the things to you that you should have.

Despite that, I do care for you, Elena. I think you know that. And I want to leave you with that, at least, so that you don’t wonder. In time, you’ll see that it’s better this way, as I do. You’ll find more happiness without me than you would by my side, even if you don’t realize that now.

I wouldn’t change what happened. But it needs to remain in the past. I want only the best for your future—and I hope you understand that’s why I’m gone.

We shouldn’t see each other again. In time, it will hurt less. I promise you that.

Goodbye, Elena. I’m grateful to have known you.

–Levin

I’ve read the letter so many times now. I could probably repeat it from memory if I wanted to.

I don’t.

I never knew what heartbreak felt like before. I’ve read about it plenty of times, in all the romance novels I devoured in my bedroom back home. In those books, the heartbreak never lasted. Eventually, the hero always comes back. He realizes he was wrong and begs the heroine to forgive him. Some of them make the hero grovel more than others, but in the end, he’s always forgiven, because he loves her so much. Because he can’t live without her.

Clearly, Levin can live without me.

And I was an idiot to ever think otherwise.

I don’t know how long I sit on my floor, sobbing. I thought I was going to cry last night when I went to bed before everyone else—that I’d finally be alone in my new room and all the stress and worry, and fear of the past weeks would explode all at once.

That’s not what happened, though.

I couldn’t cry. I laid there awake in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling, faintly hearing the sounds of Isabella and Niall and Levin’s voices from another part of the house, and I waited for the tears to come.

They never did, and I finally fell asleep, until I’d woken in the middle of the night, mouth dry and wide-awake.

I’d gone to the kitchen for water and saw Levin in the backyard. I’d gone to him, of course, because how could I not? He was leaving in the morning, and I wanted so desperately for him to stay. For him to change his mind in the last moment, the way the heroes of romance novels sometimes do, when they realize what a terrible mistake they’re about to make.

After all, everything had worked out so far, hadn’t it–despite all odds? We survived a plane crash. We dodged bullets through Rio de Janeiro, and Levin won money in poker games to keep us afloat. I kept him alive when he was nearly murdered after one of those games, stabbed in the side.

I killed men to keep him alive.

At the very end, he won the game that got us our way out of Rio. And when that went upside down, he fought through men who wanted to kill him in order to get me safely home.

How could that not end in a happily-ever-after for us?

I didn’t feel naive or innocent anymore, after everything that had happened. But now I do, sitting on my bedroom floor, clutching Levin’s goodbye letter to me. I feel stupid.

You don’t have to be alone forever, you know. What we had was real. I know you know that—it doesn’t have to be over.

You know it does, Elena.

Did you feel anything? Did you love me at all?

Remembering the conversation makes my heart ache like I’m the one who’s been stabbed. I’d put myself out there one last time, but it hadn’t been enough. He’s so sure that I should be with someone my own age. Someonelike me.

But there isn’t going to be anyone like me here. Not anymore—not after what I’ve seen and done. I’m not the same girl he thinks I am.

My job was to protect you. I’ve done that. There’s nothing more I can do for you. You deserve better than a man nearly twenty years older than you, who’s lived a hard life and can’t love someone the way you deserve to be loved. The only thing I can still do is protect you, by going far enough way from you that you can get over what we had and have your own life. And tomorrow, that’s what I’m going to do?

And you? Are you going to get over it?

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