She opened her mouth to argue yet again and then stopped. And looked into his eyes, seeing the silver flames flickering there. Anger, yes, but she could see the grief too. A grief that was still there no matter what he said about getting rid of his emotions.
A grief that unlike his scars had never healed.
You cannot argue with him. You cannot push him. Not about this, not if you care about him.
No, she couldn’t, and more, she didn’t want to. Because it was true, she did care about him. And it felt as if it was something that had been sitting inside her all along, right from the first moment he’d walked into the room as she was cleaning it. And instead of ignoring her or touching her or even talking to her, he’d sat quietly down in the chair by the fire. He hadn’t said a word and she hadn’t looked at him, her heart beating so fast with fear, the way it did whenever a guest was around. He hadn’t moved or spoken. He’d sat there like a rock, unmoving. And gradually over the course of that first day, she’d begun to realise that he wasn’t going to talk to her or reach for her or do any of the things the other guests did. All he was going to do was sit there, watching her. As if he was fascinated and couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She’d asked to him to rescue her because he’d felt like someone who would, and she hadn’t been disappointed. And over these past few months, as she’d got to know him, she’d come to see that he was a protective man. A man who had kindness in him and generosity, and humour too. A man she could rely on, who would support her and who sparked her passion like no one else. A man who made her feel strong and brave, as if she was the woman she’d always wanted to be.
It wasn’t that he didn’t feel, that wasn’t his problem; she could see that now.
It was that he felt too much; he was still mired in his grief. Living not for himself, but for the woman he’d loved and lost, and who surely wouldn’t want to see the agony he was putting himself through.
He stood now beside the fire, the golden light gilding the harsh, scarred lines of his face, somehow making beauty out of the twisted, gouged and roughened flesh. Scars he’d earned trying to save someone he’d loved, because that’s the kind of man he was. They weren’t signs of the depth of his failure. They were signs of the depth of his love.
And it was in that moment that it hit her, looking at those signs, those terrible, beautiful scars, that she realised she wanted that love too. She wanted his love.
Because it was true the thought that had whispered to her upstairs. Shewasfalling for him—or rather, she’d already fallen. And there was no saving her.
She loved him. She loved him completely and utterly without reservation, and while it was probably selfish of her, she wanted him to love her back.
But why should he? You’re a silly little girl that didn’t do what her big brother told her and got herself abducted? Why should he put aside his grief for the wife he lost for someone like you?
He wouldn’t and she would never ask him to. Why make this any harder for him than it needed to be?
He’d lost his wife and he didn’t need her wanting things from him. He didn’t need her grief for him or her love for him either. What he needed was her body and so that’s what she’d give him.
She swallowed, shoved away her own grief and pain, ignored the cold that was threading through her veins. Because she’d made him a promise. She’d told him that at the end of the year she would choose: to stay married to him, to be his wife in all ways, give him the family that he’d wanted or... She would choose to leave.
‘If you want children, then you’re not going to get them by pushing me away.’ She held her arms out to him. ‘I’ve made my choice, Ares. I choose to stay with you and be your wife. So, come and finish what you started.’
He didn’t move, his face a mask, his eyes reverting to that dark, stormy ocean with no moonlight on it at all. ‘No. My promise to Naya will have to go unfulfilled.’
Her arms dropped, her gut lurching, the cold biting deeper. ‘But—’
‘You have your brother now, Rose,’ he interrupted roughly. ‘You should go to him. You don’t need me.’
‘I don’t know my brother.’ The words sounded too desperate, but she couldn’t stop herself. ‘And I want to be with you.’
A flicker of something raw crossed his face, and then it was gone. ‘I’m afraid I cannot allow that. Not now.’
It felt like he’d stabbed her, the pain catching her unexpectedly hard deep inside. She stared at him. ‘Why not?’
He only stared back, his gaze uncompromising, no give in him at all. A man made of iron, of hard, rigid metal. ‘You are free to make a choice, and so am I. And my choice is to annul our marriage. I should never have agreed to it in the first place.’
The knife twisted, making the pain start to radiate like cracks in a broken windowpane, but she ignored it. ‘Why? But your promise—’
‘Naya is dead.’ His eyes glittered blackly. ‘And my father is too. They won’t know anyway.’
‘Ares, don’t—’
‘Enough.’ The word was hard and flat, a sword of iron cutting her off. ‘I won’t hold you to a marriage that will only cause you distress in the end, and it will, Rose. You deserve more than being the bought wife of a man who only wanted you for your ability to have children. You deservebetter. You deserve to be loved. That’s what marriage means. And that I can never give you.’
There were tears in her eyes, but she forced them back. ‘What would you know about what I deserve and what I don’t? Perhapsyouare what I deserve, love or not.’
‘Is that what you really want? To be chained for ever to a man who will never love you? Who will never give you the one thing you’ve wanted all your life—and you have wanted it, little maid, don’t deny it. How is that any different to being Vasiliev’s prisoner?’
The knife inside her twisted a little more, a little deeper. She’d had years of loneliness, years of unhappiness. Years of having nothing and no one but Athena, and yes, he was right. She wanted more than that.