“Still your favorite, I hope?”
“It is.” First the moonflowers and now this? “I can’t believe you remember.”
His head tilts, sending a lock of onyx hair falling across his furrowed brow. “I remember everything about you, Allette.”
And I remember everything about him as well.
The problem is, the people we were back then are not the same people we are today.
This Senan is shrouded in four years of mystery.
And me?
He doesn’t know the woman I’ve become. I’m not sure I want him to. It would be better for us both if he forgot me entirely.
So instead of asking what else he remembers as my heart yearns for me to do, I switch to a safer topic. “Thank you for letting Jeston go.”
His soft smile slips into something sad, and he looks away, toward the feast he brought. “I had no right to attack your friend.” He takes a deep drink from his glass, glancing up at me for a split second before plucking a grape free to roll between his fingers. “Do you think the two of you will keep in touch when you leave?”
I set down the wine in favor of a plump strawberry. Ripe, juicy, and oh so sweet. “Why would I leave?”
He blinks at me. “Despite your monstrous behavior with the stream, you are a member of the Scathian nobility. You don’t belong in the caverns, cleaning up after others.”
That was before. Back when I was whole. Now, I don’t know where I belong. All I know is that I need to be able to take care of myself because, in the end, there is only one person I can rely on. And unfortunately, it isn’t the prince sitting across from me. “Maybe I like my job.”
“Do you?”
No, but that isn’t the point. “I like the people I work with. And it’s nice having a purpose.”
“Did you not have a purpose before?”
Oh, I had a purpose, all right. One I loathed with the fire of a thousand suns. “You mean to marry and become some rich man’s wife? I’d rather scrub toilets than tie myself to someone I do not love.” If there is one positive outcome to the disaster that is my life, it’s that I will be able to choose my own path.
The muscles in his jaw flex and pulse. “You already have a husband.”
“You and I both know those vows we exchanged aren’t legally binding.” No one would believe that a prince of the realm would marry the orphaned daughter of a lowly lord.
“They’re binding to me.”
My mind immediately jumps to Darcy. “And yet you’ve been with other women.”
He looks away, his jaw still working beneath his stubble. “I was faithful to my vows for the first year. When I found that body…” He scrubs a hand down his face. “If I’d known you still drew breath, I never would’ve sought the company of other women.”
Given the circumstances, it’s unfair of me to hold him to his promises, but knowing he has been with others kills me all thesame. That they’ve been lucky enough to hold him—to love him—while I was so far away.
He clears his throat. “Have you…um… Have you been with anyone else?”
I hate the truth, and yet I tell him all the same. “Yes.”
His breath hitches, and devastation paints his handsome face. It takes him a few moments to respond. When he does, his question is no more than a trembling whisper. “Did you love him?”
At least I can say with absolute certainty, “I have only ever loved you.”
Our love isn’t the kind you read about in sonnets. Our love doesn’t bring light and happiness. It brings pain and devastation. And yet I wouldn’t change it for the world because as tragic as it is, this love is ours.
He falls onto his back and presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. “We truly are cursed, aren’t we?”
I ease down beside him, resting my weight on my elbow, drinking in the way the golden sun plays on his form. “I don’t know what we are.” We are two lovers who share a haunted past and dreams of a future that will never come true.