Honor and Desire (Gold Sky #3) - Rebel Carter Page 0,26

that it might never touch me again.”

Delilah rose from her seat and embraced her, arms wrapped tightly around her sister as she squeezed her as hard as she could. “Oh, Seylah, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

Seylah hugged her back. The comfort from her sister’s touch was enough for her to find the strength to keep talking even though the wound she had guarded so vigilantly was now stripped bare and left open for another to observe it.

It hurt, oh how it ached, but it also felt wildly liberating. To be able to speak her mind on her feelings, on what had transpired between she and August all those years ago. To be able to respond, honestly, now that they were adults, and the feeling of attraction she had felt for him at fourteen had only grown more intense and devout as she matured into a woman. She had always hoped that her feelings for her best friend would dim, simply vanish one day if she resisted the urge to be close to him like that.

Except that for all her efforts, her heart had only clung more desperately to the moments when August smiled at her, when he spoke to her as if she were the only person of import in his life, when it was just them.

Those were the moments she treasured. Her heart stuttered remembering his use of ‘honey’ just that afternoon. How was she to interpret this? And he had only used such a word when Elliot Myers had made his intentions known to take her to a picnic—had asked to call on her.

The timing of it was too neat. Seylah did not trust it, because as dumb as she played, Delilah was quite right in her estimation that August required urgency in his feelings. What if the man she had worked to stop herself from feeling as she did suddenly lost his interest in her when she turned away from Elliot?

She owed it to herself to follow through with the invite to the picnic. She owed it to her heart that she had carefully guarded to see what she might feel for Elliot. The leap to attraction was a small one as the man had thoroughly charmed her upon their first meeting, but even so...even so it was difficult to let go of August.

Try as she may. Her fragile heart would not listen.

But that did not mean that she would not do her utmost to keep to the line that she had drawn for herself wherever August Leclaire was concerned. She had worked valiantly to see him as her best friend, and her best friend the man would stay, no matter how much her sister said he brooded over the news of her picnic with Elliot.

She squeezed her sister tight and kissed her cheek. Delilah spoke plainly and honestly, which made the truth so much harder for Seylah to give voice to. She knew her sister saw something between them, that Delilah wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise, but whatever it was, Seylah knew that it could not be. Not when it risked her losing August, not when it had nearly cost her their friendship already. She would never make that mistake again.

Seylah leaned her forehead against her sister’s crown and smiled bitterly when Delilah whispered, “Please don’t cry.”

She hadn’t even realized she had begun to cry, the tears had come so fiercely and suddenly that Seylah was left with wet cheeks and little recollection of when it began. Her heart ached, knowing the tears were for what never had been between she and August.

“Promise me that whatever brooding you see August doing, or saw him engaging in today, promise me that you will not make it out to be more than it is.”

“But Seylah...it was something,” Delilah insisted.

“No, it was not. It cannot be anything. It is August and I merely misunderstanding the other. There is a lapse in our communication, but it will all be laid to rights soon enough. I promise you. What you saw today was on no account of my having a scheduled outing with Elliot Myers,” she finished, her throat burning by the time she was finished speaking. The tears were falling faster now, her chest constricting from the energy it took to hold back the sob that was rising up in her. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing them away, but even while she did, she knew the world did not operate in such a way that a