“Is that really what you want?” he asked, his voice strained.
She nodded, trying to keep the tears from falling. “Yes. It is.”
She walked out of the office and ignored Xander shouting her name. Ignored the sound of his footsteps behind her as she ran to her room. She looked around, at all the pretty things. And decided she didn’t need any of it.
She wouldn’t stop running again until she’d reached safety. Until she could feel safely hidden from the wall of grief that was threatening to overwhelm her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LAYNA RODE UNTIL her thigh muscles burned and her lungs ached. Across the fields and up to the highest point on the hilltop, where she could look over the ocean. The wind was blowing her hair everywhere, her horse shifting his weight beneath her.
The drunken gambler didn’t think she had faith, it would make her laugh if she didn’t feel like she was cracking apart inside. Stupid man. Stupid, stupid man.
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, the salty air burning her throat. Mother Superior hadn’t blinked overly much at her return, but this morning she’d called Layna into her office and told that she would have to make a choice now.
Either she would take her vows, or she would find somewhere else to go. The abbess hadn’t been unkind, but the simple fact was, Layna’s room had been filled and she’d been off living...well, unchastely. That was the truth and she couldn’t deny it.
This wasn’t a place for her to hide, while she was free to have bouts of going off and doing what she wanted. It wasn’t fair. Or right.
Damn Xander. She had no idea who she was anymore.
You of little faith.
It wasn’t fair. He was asking her to have faith in him but she didn’t have a guarantee. She couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t lose everything again.
That she wouldn’t be left stranded at rock bottom alone.
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Well, that was just inconvenient. She got off her horse and looked out at the ocean, over the rolling, gray waves. Everything seemed to have been leached of color to accommodate her mood and she appreciated it. At least something was working in her favor.
Suddenly she was hit by a wave of sadness so strong it crippled her. She went down to her knees, the moisture from the grass bleeding through her dress.
He was right. She had no faith. It took no faith to hide. You didn’t need faith when you were safe. Didn’t need it behind the walls of a convent, where you were protected from the world. When your every need was met daily and you were never challenged, you didn’t need faith.
You didn’t need faith when you were a novice who’d spent years managing to not take vows. Not taking the leap of faith and committing the trust it took to go wholly into that life, not having the faith to go back into the world and try to live.
She’d condemned herself to a halflife in exchange for safety. It wasn’t the press that scared her. It was what he made her feel.
He made her feel so exposed. He didn’t accept her excuses. Didn’t let her scars keep him at a distance. He wanted it all. Worse, he wanted her to have it all.
And wasn’t sure she was brave enough to ever take that risk again.
* * *
If ever there was a time Xander wanted to run, it was now. From the searing pain in his chest. From the burning in his eyes, from tears, damn it, and not because he was hung over.
He hadn’t had anything to drink since she’d left.
It was like he’d well and truly changed. Fancy that. Change didn’t feel all that rewarding when you were sober and you didn’t have the woman you loved.
A pain shot through his chest. Yes, he did love her. He wondered now if he always had. If he’d been a shallow boy, in love with a shallow, beautiful girl. Until their world shook apart and he’d gone off licking his wounds.
He’d come back a man changed, to find her a woman changed. And to find that everything that had been there between them from the beginning was still there. That the tragedies of life had reshaped them, so much so that they fit together now even more perfectly than before.
And she was too afraid to see it. Too afraid to reach out and take it. To trust him. To be with him. She was choosing to be unhappy so that she wouldn’t be devastated and that killed him.
Unless she just doesn’t love you.
Well, that was always a possibility. But still, with him or without him, she was choosing fear over happiness and that ate at him. Because it was what he’d done for so long. Because he was an expert in empty, meaningless things. In pursuits that were vain and useless.
In turning away from everything pure and strong, and hard and wonderful, so that he could simply find some shelter from reality.