Page 62 of Cross Me

“Nothing will change that,” I said firmly and meant it. “Nothing.”

“I should have listened,” she said, “and now everything is ruined.”

I sighed, wondering how she couldn’t see what I could. “I don’t want you to obey me.”

She was still crying, but this earned me a rueful snort. “You could have fooled me, X.”

“I love you. The you that is headstrong and reckless and opinionated and intelligent. Stop me if I’m rambling.” I allowed a small smirk to sneak onto my face.

“You can keep going.” She bit back a smile of her own.

I cupped her chin, brushing tears from her cheeks with my thumb. “You are everything I’ve always needed and more than I ever hoped for.”

“Can I quote you on that the next time you’re ordering me around?” There was a hopeful edge despite her sharp tone.

“I deserve that,” I admitted. “Every day, I want to be better for you. I try, but I know that choosing me meant giving up a life you could have had and—”

“This is the only life I could ever want,” she cut me off. “For better or worse, remember?”

“I do. Do you?” I didn’t know what had brought her here tonight. But I’d lived my life with secrets weighing on my soul. I wouldn’t allow Clara to carry that same burden.

She hesitated, then tipped her head toward the office. She wanted privacy for what she needed to tell me. We’d been standing here, baring our souls. Whatever came next needed to be said behind closed doors. Blood roared in my ears as my heart pounded with panic. Nothing would change between us, even if…

I swallowed against the anxiety clawing its way from my chest to my throat. I thought I’d lost her before. I’d faced a world without her. In those moments, I’d operated automatically, allowing instinct to kick in and handle what my mind couldn’t. But that wouldn’t work today. I’d lied. I’d broken my vows to her. I’d sinned. Now the devil had come to collect.

“You were right,” she said softly as I closed the door. “About Anders. About me and him. He’s…he’s…”

“In love with you,” I finished for her. I’d seen it. I’d recognized it, because it had been like looking in a mirror. I had seen the love in his eyes—the eyes that looked like mine, but strangely not like our father’s. Was it some trick of genetics? Or some strange, inexplicable magic? My father and his brother shared the same watery blue eyes that felt as infinite and unknowable as the sea. But Anders’s eyes blazed like mine—the brightest tip of a flame. We were explosive, uncontrollable, and determined—and when we finally saw what we wanted, we couldn’t hide it.

Clara perched on a chair and clasped her hands in her lap. She was waiting for me to say something more, but for once I knew I needed to listen. I took up a familiar circuit of the room, trying to focus the frenzy building inside me.

“He told me he loved me,” she confirmed in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

“He does love you.”

“He thinks he does,” she corrected me.

“He does,” I said flatly. I stopped in my tracks, only a few paces from her chair.

“I don’t know why I let myself…”

“And?” I braced myself for the worst of it. She’d come here full of regret. There had to be more.

“And what?” She blinked rapidly, trying to process the question.

“What happened?”

“He told me he loved me,” she repeated this like it was news. “He wanted…I’m not certain what he wanted.”

I barked a laugh, my chest relaxing so I could breathe freely again.

“Are you laughing?” she asked in a strangely high-pitched voice. “A man I barely know thinks he’s in love with me and I’ve spent the last two hours trying to figure out how to tell you that I somehow led him on, and you’re laughing?”

I closed the short distance between us and sank to my knees at her feet. “I can’t fault a man for falling in love with you. I certainly can’t fault you. Poppet, you have no control over how bewitching you are.”

“He doesn’t know me,” she said, displaying the stubborn streak I loved.

“It doesn’t take much. I fell in love with you the moment you warned me about the dangers of smoking.”