so much I painted a bull’s-eye over my heart then gifted him with a pair of steel-toed boots.
“You’re not going to ask what the problem is first?”
“I owe you.” I sensed a slight tilt and corrected my posture. “What do you need?”
“You can look at me,” he said, a growl deepening his naturally raspy voice.
“I don’t have to see you to hear you.” I swallowed hard. “Say what you came to say.”
“You’re my mate, and I abandoned you.”
Mate?
Forget my best intentions, no force on earth could have stopped me from gawking at him in shock.
Mate?
“What I did was unforgiveable.” He sat on a step out of my reach. “I have no excuse.”
Except he didn’t need one. I got it. Without prompting. “You didn’t know who you mated.”
“I mated you.” Resolve firmed his mouth. “I love…you.”
The horizon was no longer in danger of tilting, but it blurred as I returned my chin to my hand. “No.”
“No? I don’t love you, or I don’t know who I mated?”
“Both.” I kicked my legs. “Most days I don’t know who I am. It’s hard keeping my past and my present straight. It was stupid to think a relationship could work with those kinds of barriers.”
“I went to Savannah.”
The twist in my gut made me nauseous. “Back to the scene of the crime.”
There was nothing about Amelie Pritchard he couldn’t unearth if he dug deep enough in Savannah soil. Except where she went after her debt to the Society was considered paid. But he already knew the end of my sad tale.
“I went to visit Lethe for a few days.”
That was almost worse. No. That was definitely worse. Lethe knew all there was to know about Amelie’s dark side, and what she didn’t remember, she could ask Grier. The trip would shine a light on all corners of my former life.
“Oh” seemed easiest, so I prepared to repeat it again and again until he left.
“I talked to Linus and Grier while I was there.”
“Ah.”
How’s that for variety?
“Do you know what I learned?”
“No.”
Tremble before the might of my vocabulary.
“I haven’t been honest with you about who I am either.”
“Okay?”
“I can’t hold your past against you without giving you the chance to do the same to me.”
Screwing up my courage, I put thought into words and hoped he would accept it and go.
“You don’t owe me anything. We didn’t make those promises to each other. We agreed to try, and we agreed to do it with blinders on. The secret idea was good, but we didn’t take it seriously. We weren’t ready to commit or able to commit or whatever it means when two people love each other but it’s not enough.”
“You love me.”
Frak. Frak. Frak.
I hadn’t meant to say that part out loud. Ever. It was the kind of thing that couldn’t be unheard.
“I can’t do this.” I squinted against the rising sun. “We’re just going to keep hurting each other.”
“Not if we agree to tell each other the truth.”
“You went to Savannah.” I laughed bitterly. “You know everything about me.”
“Grier loves you, and Linus admires you. Lethe envies you. Mom respects you. That’s what I know.”
The tears flowed over my cheeks and dripped off my chin. “What if they’re wrong?”
“Then it doesn’t matter.” He moved a step closer. “I love you.”
The strain in my throat made denials impossible, but I shook my head anyway.
“You’re my mate.” He claimed another step higher. “There’s no going back. Not for me.”
“The courtship is null and void.” Goddess, it hurt to admit it. “There’s no going back, period.”
“The bond snapped into place before the period ended.” He inched closer. “I should have told you, but I wanted you to make the choice for yourself.” He hesitated. “I hoped you had felt it too.”
Ambrose, who didn’t care one whit about my personal life, took the opportunity to rub it in my face that he had tried to tell me that night at the den when he pointed at my chest and then the door. Except now I understood he’d meant the man on the other side of it.
“It doesn’t matter.” I blew my nose on my sleeve. “We’re done, Midas.”
I understood why he walked away, and I would have done the same in his shoes. Maybe. I don’t know. I hadn’t loved anyone before. I wasn’t sure how far the emotion stretched before it broke. But he had proven he could walk away, and that terrified me. I couldn’t afford to invest in this, in us, again. It hurt too