“That’s not what I’ve heard.” Carter’s voice is carefully empty. “In fact, I’ve heard a wedding is imminent. Alden practically proposed to you earlier.”
Was he eavesdropping on us?
My head snaps toward him. My words are biting. “Then perhaps we’ll end up in-laws, since you’re supposedly marrying Ava.”
He scoffs. “Funny.”
“Is it? The thought makes me rather ill, actually.”
Carter’s eyes narrow. “Why? Afraid of what might happen if you and I were to spend a lifetime legally bound by familial ties, unable to ever truly escape each other?”
My teeth grit. “Of course not.”
“You’re lying. I think it terrifies you. The thought of enduring decades of stuffy ballrooms and cloistered dance floors, standing next to a husband you don’t want… Sitting across from me at dinner tables full of people you can’t stand… Wishing all the while we were hidden away in some dark corner together…”
I jerk my chin away, so he can’t see my face, refusing to grant him an answer.
His voice drops lower. “You know, now that you mention it… I think I might rather enjoy a lifetime of torturing you with all the things you can’t have. Watching you yawn your way through a marriage with Sterling will be everlasting entertainment. Perhaps I should accept Ava’s proposition for our own impending nuptials, just to ensure I get a front row seat.”
“You’re such an asshole!” I snap, eyes suddenly wet. “I hope you do go to Switzerland! I hope I never have to see you again! I’d rather not have you in my life at all than have you like… likethis! Some bitter fucking shell of the man I fell in lo—”
I bite down on the words, trembling from head to toe. I can’t believe I almost said that out loud. I must’ve lost my mind; a momentary seizure, stealing all sense of reason. Carter’s eyes are pinning me to the spot, full of dark thoughts I don’t dare decipher. Thoughts that, if spoken, would no doubt destroy us both.
Before I can say something else to jeopardize both our futures, I whirl away from him and start walking. I need space. I need distance. I need to clear my head and remember why being alone with Carter Thorne is such a devastatingly bad idea.
I make it about three steps before he grabs me, hauling me back against his chest. I struggle but it’s no use — his hold is unbreakable, his arms caging me in with strength far surpassing my own.
“People will see,” I snap, paranoid despite the empty terrace. The auction’s drawn everyone to their seats by now, leaving us totally alone.
“I don’t give a fuck if they see.” Carter’s mouth hits the bare skin where my neck meets my shoulder. He’s breathing hard. His hands are viciously tight. I get the sense he’s teetering on the edge of self-control, a whisper away from losing it completely. “Emilia. God, Emilia. You’re fucking killing me.”
“Is that why you’re so hellbent on hurting me? You want me to suffer too?”
“I don’t want to hurt you!” His hands tighten further, a vise-like contradiction. “Fuck, that’s the last thing I want. I’d never hurt you.”
“You want to punish me, then. To get even. To constantly remind me of everything I can’t have.” My voice breaks as the first tear streaks from the corner of my eye. “Congratulations, Carter. I’m suffering. Is that what you need to hear? That you’re breaking me? That not being with you is tearing me apart?”
“You aren’t breaking, though! Youneverbreak. You’re Emilia Lancaster. You’re the goddamn queen. You’re fucking indestructible. I’m the idiot who makes an asshole of himself time and time again, begging for you to acknowledge what’s between us. And time and time again, you walk away. You shut me out. You deny me. If anyone is inflicting pain in this scenario, it’syou.”
My voice is shaking. “You think I’m indestructible? You think I can’t break? I’m breaking right now, in this very moment. I’m so broken, I can’t remember ever being whole. I’m in fuckingpieces, Carter. I can barely hold myself together. And every time I touch you, every time I so much as look at you, that mask of composure I wear for the rest of the world threatens to shatter all over again.”
A wet drop hits my collarbone — a tear. Carter’s tear. When I feel it, something inside me withers and dies, the flower of a vine that never stood a chance against the cold reality of its climate. Before I can stop myself, before I can talk myself out of it, I turn in his arms. His eyes, so endlessly blue, are shining with emotions he’s struggling to keep at bay. The sight of it is a knife straight into the fabric of my soul.
My hands tremble as I reach up and cup his beautiful, miserable face. My thumbs brush the sharp planes of his cheekbones, wiping away all traces of tears.
“Don’t. Please don’t. I can’t stand to see you like this,” I whisper desperately. “God, Carter, can’t you see that all we do is break each other? Can’t you see that this is going to destroy us both? If we keep doing this… I’m not going to survive. And neither are you. It hurts too much. And it’s only getting harder.”
“I know,” he rasps, his voice ragged.
“We’ve been lying to ourselves, thinking we can somehow coexist platonically in this world. The truth is, I can’t be around you without being consumed by you. I wish I were stronger. I wish I could keep my distance. But I can’t. I try and I fail, over and over and over again. Caught up in this vicious cycle of wanting you when I know full-well I can’t have you.” My head shakes. “This… it has to end. We have to end it. For good, this time.”
“How the fuck are we supposed to do that, Emilia? How the fuck am I supposed to stay away from you? The last three months have been hell. Every day, wondering where you were, how you were, whether you were still fuckingbreathing. Catching glimpses of you on the front of magazines, on news broadcasts. Hearing your name in line at the cashier, on busy street corners.” Carter’s brow is furrowed with anger and agony. “Is that really all I’m supposed to survive on? Is that all I’ll get of you now? Fragments of a stranger on a television screen? Pieces of a girl I used to know, with the safety of an international border between us?”
My whisper is hollow. “I wish I could see any other way.”
He’s silent for a long time, Adam’s apple bobbing roughly. “So that’s it, then? Huh? I go to Switzerland and you marry someone else and we forget we ever mattered to each other?”
“No.” A tear escapes from the corner of my eye. “I’ll never forget. I can’t. You are engraved on my heart, Carter Thorne. Far too deeply to ever be removed. You should know that by now. Whether you’re here or a world away… Whether this is the last moment we ever spend together… I will never stop thinking about you. I will never stop wishing things could be different.”