AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s okay.” His voice gives nothing away. “You have every right to feel that way. I robbed you of time with Marie. Then I was there instead, having the conversations she should have been having with you.”
“Did she ask you to bring me back?”
There’s a small pause. “All the time. She was furious at me for refusing. But she put up with me because she was lonely. She missed you.”
I close my eyes and a tear slips free. “You’re lying. She told me that she didn’t want me to come back.”
“It was because she loved you, Laila. She didn’t want you to see her struggle.”
I bite my lip to hold back a sob. When I feel more in control of myself, I wipe the tears away. “Thank you… for lying to me.”
“I never meant to hurt you, you know. I wish I could do it over. If I wasn’t so consumed with preventing my own pain, I could have avoided causing yours.”
My breath hitches. My cheek is practically kissing the wood. “What do you mean?”
“I sent you away because of the bounty, but there was more to it. After Dom and I were attacked… It shook me. I didn’t see it coming. I haven’t felt that way in a very long time. Not since my parents died.” His voice softens, but I’ve never heard him so clearly. “I hate not being prepared. After what happened with my father, I vowed never to be taken by surprise again.”
“No one can be prepared for everything in life.”
“You have to pay attention. Stay alert. There are signs. There are always signs. But I was distracted, and I missed them.” He groans in frustration, and when I close my eyes, I can picture him tugging at his hair. “My dad stopped eating after my mom died. He wouldn’t speak. He was a shell, and I… I should have seen it coming.”
I’m almost afraid to ask, but I can’t stop myself. “Seen what coming?”
“He committed suicide,” Arsen rasps softly. “Right on her grave. I’m the one who found him.”
“Oh my God! Arsen.”
Before I can think better of it, I yank the door open.
Arsen is as surprised as I am when he turns to face me, and I throw my arms around his neck. I crawl into his lap and bury my face in his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because it’s not something I talk about.”
I pull back to look at him. We’re sitting in the threshold between the hallway and my room. No man’s land in more ways than one. “You can’t blame yourself, Arsen.”
“Except it was my fault.”
“You were a child?—”
“I was his son. And I failed him.” His hand hovers over my knee like he’s still not sure if he can touch me. “The night Dom and I were attacked, I was distracted. With myself. With…” His eyes search out mine for a moment before dancing away again. “With us. If I’d been paying closer attention, I would have sensed the trap.”
“So you sent me away because I was a distraction?”
For months, I wanted an explanation. But nothing about this makes me feel any better.
“Something like that.” He drops his eyes. “I was scared. I thought the only way to run this empire and keep the people I love safe was to be alone.”
“How did that work for you?”
“We’re here, aren’t we?” He lets out a scorned laugh. “We both know I made the wrong choice. That’s why I’m trying to fix it.”
That’s why he’s opening up to me. That’s why he’s here.
How many times did I watch my father weasel his way back into my mother’s life, just to take some money and run?
Arsen is not like my father, but I’d be stupid to ignore the hard-won lessons my mother lived through.
“I opened the door because I…” I hear Guilia’s question from lunch echoing in my head, but the word “love” might as well be a different language. I can’t bring myself to say it. Not now. Not when everything is still up in the air. “… because I still care about you. Not because I forgive you.”
