Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,70

that could only be described as away. Anders closed his eyes, feigning death, sleep or both, with a candy cane sticking out of his mouth.

The square was quiet. Her family couldn’t have been more obvious about giving her space for the few minutes alone she’d asked for.

She put her hands in her pockets and wandered further into the little grove of Christmas trees in the middle of the square. Hardwick kept pace with her. Each step she took seemed to press more heavily into the ground, until she felt as though she was about to sink into the snow under her own weight.

“How are you feeling?” he asked at last. “Ah, shit. I’m sorry. That’s a stupid question.”

His mouth twisted, bitter and self-critical. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. She certainly couldn’t look up into his eyes. Everything inside her, the new healed piece of her heart where her family’s love lived and the painful piece he’d ripped out, was too muddled up.

When the rest of her family turned on her, she’d frozen up inside. Completely. Even her fingers had felt numb, and her senses dulled, as though she was encased in ice.

She hadn’t dared to check on the glowing mate bond in her heart, to check that it was still there. Still alive, and not as dead and frozen as the rest of her.

But…

“Could be worse,” she muttered.

Hardwick’s chin jerked away from her. “They were lying. All of them, about everything. All that Belgrave family bullshit. Your grandfather’s why. You know that, don’t you?”

“But they weren’t lying afterwards.”

“No. They weren’t.”

The knowledge released something inside her. But not for Hardwick. The lines at the edges of his mouth deepened. He looked as bad as he did when she first met him. When, although she didn’t know it, he’d just been thrown from the promise of a week’s peace and recovery into a reality that promised pain no matter what choices he made. Be with her and let her hurt him, or lose her and rip his own heart out of his chest.

He growled low in his throat. “And the truth hurt you more than their lies could ever hurt me.”

“Hardwick, you almost passed out last night after spending a couple of minutes with them.”

He gestured with one hand. “I can handle my own problems. But not by causing more for you. I thought—you know I thought you should tell them. But the moment the truth came out and the pain stopped, when I saw the look on your face…” He shook his head.

“You wanted to save me.”

“And if I’d tried to, I would have hurt you worse than any of them ever did.” His shoulders slumped. “I hated it. Standing there, not doing anything. I should have been able to help you.”

“You did. You got me out of there.”

“Too late.”

She shook her head. “Anders and Vance… they were just trying to help me, too. I never gave them that chance before. I thought I had everything under control, so I had to keep it that way. Belgraves don’t need saving.” She parroted her grandfather’s words and made a face. “The whole bloody family needs saving. And I…”

Slowly, she reached out and threaded her fingers through his. He stiffened, then returned her embrace, his grip like a lifeline.

Delphine turned around and he turned with her until they were both looking back towards her family. Her mother and Vance had their heads together, looking at the cell phones, and Anders was doing a terrible job of pretending to be asleep. He kept darting his eyes open and shooting looks at them all.

“I have spent most of my life convinced that if Mum and my brothers knew the truth about me, then I would lose them. Now I have a real family for the first time since I was a child. It’s more than I ever thought I could have out of life. But it’s not all I want.”

She turned to him, and his gaze on her face was warmer than the sun.

“I want you to keep wanting to help me. And I want to help you, too. I don’t want us being together to be something that hurts you. And—I know I’m going to forget to tell the truth sometimes, or slip into old habits, or—maybe even if I’m angry, or upset. I don’t want to be that person, but I can’t promise I won’t be.”

She tucked her other hand under his arm, pulling him closer as she tried to