and wanted, even though it was all wrong and she knew she
shouldn’t. “You don’t have to be like this. I thought you were,
but you weren’t. Aren’t. Not really. Not deep down. When you
hit your head, you were nice. You were vulnerable. It was
okay to just be you. You don’t have to pretend—”
“It’s not an act,” Giana responded, nearly feral. “This is my
life! My. Life. You meddled and schemed, and you didn’t once
consider the cost.”
“That’s not true.” She’d definitely considered it. And she’d
known that this would happen. That this would be the
outcome.
“Oh. So you did.” It sounded so much worse that way.
She needed to explain, even if it was far too late. “You saw
the ring,” Coralyn stammered. “You asked if we were
engaged. I saw an opportunity to find the necklace if I brought
you back here. I was desperate. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” She
couldn’t say that the pain ebbing and flowing through her was
an unnatural tide that she didn’t understand. How could she
feel like she was losing something that she’d never wanted?
How could she feel any more loss than what she’d already
endured? How could she live through it when she was so
certain that one more droplet of grief into that overflowing
bucket would kill her? “I was drowning in grief and I’m so
sorry. It was never supposed to get this far.”
“So you came here to rob me blind and in the process we
got married. Must have been your lucky day.”
It was true that when it happened, Coralyn had very briefly
thought that she’d been handed an unexpected weapon. A
blade she could sink in deep in retribution. She hated that
she’d even had those thoughts, had even entertained them. She