Page 58 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

Apollo,” she said, or maybe she only felt it. Maybe there was no difference, here in the space. Between what they said and what they felt. Maybe it all mingled together with real honesty, and pain, with real feelings that transcended language.

Just don’t love him.

He moved away from her, and she turned to face him, trembling. “I have work to finish,” she said.

“I will meet you at home,” he said. She could see walls come down in those dark eyes, and she wished she understood why.

She knew that he was pulling away. She wanted to know why he was, but asking would defeat the purpose.

“About tickets to an opera. I thought you might want to go.”

“Are you asking me on a date?” she asked, moving away from the window with trembling legs and beginning to collect her clothes.

“Yes. I am.”

She had never really been on a date. She and Apollo had been sleeping together for well over a week, but she had never been on a date. She wondered if she ought to tell him no.

But you have a year. Just a year.

“Yes. I would love to. I just need to finish here.”

“I have had a dress selected for you. It will be in your room waiting when you return. I have some business to attend to, so I will meet you. A car will drive you to the opera house.”

“Okay,” she said, uncertain what to make of all of this.

It was like the gesture of inviting her out was a step closer, but there were many other things that seemed like a withdrawal. She wanted to ask him. To what end? Because it would only be defeatist for them both.

So she let him pull away. She let him dress and leave. And she finished her work for the day and went home.

Home. This wasn’t her home. She was going to buy a home in New York.

She thought of that beautiful street in the village. The one that he was so enraptured by when he had been a young man who had come to the city.

A young prostitute.

She stopped.

The truth of his past gave a new context to that story. He had come with a wealthy woman who was using him. Who had bought his body.

She really thought about what he must’ve felt. Being part of that wealthy world without actually being in it.

And the church.

Wanting desperately for some kind of spiritual reconciliation but being uncertain of whether or not you could have it all the world around you was still so... Complicated. Broken. He had done some things he didn’t want to in order to survive. To protect himself. To compromise himself to make himself safer in the long run, and she couldn’t imagine what that must have been like.

She felt a crack forming in her heart. And it was letting all manner of tenderness in where he was concerned, and she didn’t especially like it. It was better when she could push against him. Better when they could oppose each other.

There was so much pain in the world. Her own mother had experienced this same pain. Maybe it had been why she couldn’t show Hannah the love she wanted. Maybe it was why Apollo...

She hated that they’d been hurt.

She hated that he’d been hurt.

But she was so afraid of him hurting her.

So afraid that the love she’d felt for him—always—was real, no matter what she tried to tell herself. About how she had been young, how she hadn’t known him. That this new, all-consuming need was just that—need.

Because maybe if she could believe that, she could believe that at the end of the year, she would be ready to walk away.

---