Page 213 of The Defiant Curse

Yeah, she supposed she did, so Elizabeth clarified.

“I need you. I need you to help me find me again. I know she’s in there, but I need you by my side so I can figure this out. It began with us, and now I need it to be with us. I just know that you have obligations, and I know that going back could matter to you. I didn’t want to make you feel trapped.”

Immediately, he stopped her.

Lifting her chin, he stared into her eyes.

“You’re my obligation, and I forgot that. I became yours, and I wasn’t reciprocating. If you need me to be here, Elizabeth, I’m going to be here. I would have run with you had you told me that was what you needed.”

She didn’t say anything.

But he did.

“Part of the issue we’re having is you don’t ask for help. You take it all on, and instead of reaching out to me, or any of us for that matter, you just carry it. So, as a man, I assume that’s what you want, because I have to trust that my wife will let me know when she needs help. That’s on me, because clearly, you’ve been carrying a lot, and it’s been damaging you. I should have seen that. I should have intervened when I saw the burden getting to be too much.”

She let him talk.

“You gave up trusting all of us, and instead of reaching for me, to be your partner, you assumed it had to be all you or nothing. It began feeling like I wasn’t enough to help you, so I backed off. I gave you space because I didn’t feel like I had a place in your world anymore.”

Instead of getting offended, she listened.

“I didn’t think I was enough, and whether that was my own insecurities haunting me, and my own demons, or not, I should have just asked. We will always have that, at least, Elizabeth. I would hope we could talk to each other and not have it erode us.”

She reassured him.

“We can, Ethan.”

Well, then, he needed her to start trusting him.

“When you need me, all you have to do is ask.”

She was honest.

“You’ve had a rough year, too. Javier Hughes, and David Neives…”

He stopped her.

“Again, you shouldn’t assume. Yes, I have had a rough year, but maybe helping you would have helped me through my issues. I’m learning still, and what I’ve seen is that relationships that lean into each other, and not away from each other, last longer. All you had to do was ask for me to help, and I would have.”

She knew he was right.

This was definitely on her, too.

The bottom line was that he’d never told her she couldn’t lean on him. That had been her trying to hold up the world alone. It would have been so much better to have them help her.

Maybe it wouldn’t have come to this.

As she was silent, Ethan held her.

“Lyzee, my love, I know that you are in a unique position where as a woman, you have to do a lot more to make that climb to the top. I know that my rise was not nearly as harrowing. Being a woman is far more difficult, and you’re doing a damn good job—especially considering you never wanted to be at the top to begin with.”

Oh, he was right about that.

Gabe had trapped her in this.

She listened.

“But you can still rely on us. You took Gene out with you to hunt Devon Slater. You leaned into Chris when you needed an escape out of Damascus to heal. You’re in a castle that Callen bought you as a hideaway. What did you need from me?” he asked. “It came across as nothing. Again, I would have come with you in a heartbeat.”