West looked up then, like he knew what I was about to say.
“I think maybe he hated that he loved her,” I whispered.
The room fell silent, the sounds of the sea and the village disappearing.
“Are you asking me if I feel that way?”
I nodded, instantly regretting it.
He looked as if he was measuring me. Trying to decide if he was going to answer. If he could trust me with it. “Sometimes,” he admitted.
But it wasn’t followed by the terror I had been sure would come, because West didn’t look away from me as he said the words.
“But this didn’t start that night on Jeval when you asked me for passage to Ceros. It started a long time before that. For me.”
Tears welled in my eyes as I looked up at him. “But what if—”
“Fable.” He closed the space between us, and his hands lifted to my face, his fingertips sliding into my hair. The sensation woke the heat on my skin, and I sniffed, so happy that he’d finally touched me. His mouth hovered an inch above mine. “The answer to that question is always going to be the same. It doesn’t matter what happens.” His hands tightened on me. “You and me.”
The words sounded like vows. But there was a grief that bloomed in my chest as he spoke them, like an incantation that gave flesh to bones.
My voice deepened, waiting for his mouth to touch mine. “How long can you live like that?”
His lips parted and the kiss was deep, drawing the air from the room, and the word was broken in his throat. “Forever.”
My fingers twisted in his shirt as I pulled him toward me, and in an instant the space that had stretched between us minutes ago was gone. It vanished the moment his skin touched mine. He could feel it, too. It was in the way his kiss turned hungry. The way his fingers pulled at the laces of my underdress until it was sliding over my hips.
I smiled against his mouth, my bare feet stepping over the pile of silk on the floor as he walked us to the cot. I laid back onto the quilts, pulling him with me so I could melt into the heat of him. I hooked my legs around his hips as I tugged at his shirt, finding his skin with my fingertips, and his breath shook on an exhale as he leaned all his weight into me.
West’s lips trailed down my throat until the warmth of his mouth pressed to the soft hollow below my collar bone, then to my breast. A pitiful sound crept up my throat as I arched my back, trying to get closer. When he realized what I wanted, his hands trailed up my thighs so he could take hold of my hips, and he fit me against him, groaning.
Like the flick of wind over water, it all disappeared. Holland, Saint, the Trade Council meeting, midnight, the Roths. It could be our last night on the Marigold, our last night on this crew, but whatever happened tomorrow, we were sailing into it together.
You and me.
And for the first time, I believed him.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The harbor bell echoed like a harbinger in the silence of Sagsay Holm as I stood at the window, watching the fog spill over the docks.
West tucked the wild strands of hair behind his ear. His attention was on the buttons of his jacket, but I was thinking about the way he’d looked in the candlelight the night before, warm light on bronze skin. I could still feel the sting of him on me, and the memory made my cheeks flush pink. But West didn’t look embarrassed. If anything, he looked more settled. Steadied.
I pulled in a long, slow breath, trying to calm my nerves. As if he could read my thoughts, West pressed a kiss to my temple. “You ready?”
I nodded, picking up the frock from where I’d dropped it on the floor the night before. I was ready. West had promised me that even if the Roths betrayed us, he wouldn’t honor Holland’s contract. Even if that meant leaving the Marigold behind and spending the rest of our lives in the rye fields or diving on Jeval.
Truthfully, I didn’t care anymore. I had found a family in West, and I’d learned enough from all that had happened to know that I would trade anything in the world for it.