“Prentice, stop talking.”
“I turned around and walked away. I didn’t even f**king call you.”
“Don’t do this to yourself, it wasn’t your fault.”
“No?”
“I’m weak,” she whispered.
Prentice was silent a moment before he laughed. It was an ugly noise and it hurt Fiona’s ghostly ears.
Bella felt the same.
Her pale face went ashen and, with a visible effort, she pulled free of his hands, turned off the tap, twisted in his arms and put her hands on his chest.
“It’s true, Prentice, I’m weak. I always have been,” she admitted this like it was a dirty little secret.
“He beat you to keep you from me,” Prentice countered. “What’s my excuse?”
Her head jerked and she asked, “Pardon?”
“You’re father hit you to control you. Your behavior wasn’t weak, it was survival. I had a good life, I’d never experienced that, no one ever treated me that way. What excuse do I have that I didn’t go after you? Wounded ego?”
Bella lifted her hands to either side of his neck and held on tight.
“Stop doing this. There’s no purpose.”
“No purpose?” he clipped. “If you stay, in a week, a month, ten years, it will eventually sink in that I left you to that. I didn’t protect you. I didn’t believe in you. What do I do when the bitterness creeps in, Elle, and you can’t bear to be with me anymore? What do I do?”
Her fingers curled into his neck but he didn’t give her the opportunity to reply.
“You needed me to protect you and I didn’t. I left you to that,” he continued, his hands came to hers at his neck and he pulled them away, his thumbs sliding along her palms, he went on, “And it was so bad, you harmed yourself because of it.”
She winced but recovered quickly and assured him, “I survived.”
He gave a short, unamused laugh. “Aye. You survived. But life isn’t survival, Elle, life is beautiful.”
She shook her head and said softly, “Not for everyone. Not for a lot of people, Pren, just for those fortunate few.”
Fiona watched as Prentice’s mouth got tight at her words but he replied, “True enough. But you deserve a beautiful life and I would have given it to you if I hadn’t given up, believed you’d played me, stopped believing in you, stopped believing in us.”
Fiona saw Bella was no longer listening.
Her eyes had grown unfocused.
Prentice saw it too.
He was losing her.
Do something! Fiona shouted.
“Elle,” he called but she didn’t reply. His hands curled into hers and gave them a gentle jerk as he repeated, “Elle.”
She shook her head as if clearing it and her eyes refocused.
“You said in ten years –” Bella whispered.
“Aye,” Prentice interrupted, his tone harsh. “Ten years, twenty years, fifty years. Who gives a f**k if, in the end, it might mean I lose you again.”