Eleanor felt her breath hitch, her heart pounding. She had never imagined he would speak so plainly, and it was everything she wanted to hear. She could hardly even believe that it was happening, but it was. It was, and it was continuing.
“I have spent years believing that love is something that destroys,” he continued. “That it weakens, that it leaves ruin behind it, not only for oneself, but for anyone drawn into it. I believed that allowing it any place in my life would lead to the same outcome, that it would take control in a way I could not recover from. I believed that avoiding it entirely was the onlyway to prevent that. I understand now that what I feared was not love itself, it was the loss of control that comes with it, and losing control with you is not something I wish to prevent anymore.”
“Julian, you do not have to say all of this. I know that you were not trying to hurt me, and–”
“I was wrong,” he repeated. “I cannot return to what we were. I cannot pretend that this is still an arrangement. I cannot offer you only part of myself and expect that to be enough. Not anymore.”
Eleanor remained still, though her breathing had slowed, her thoughts no longer scattered, instead drawn entirely into the words he was saying to her.
“I cannot stop it,” he said. “I would not, even if I could.”
He did not reach for her. He did not attempt to bridge the final distance between them with anything but the truth he had refused to speak until that moment, and Eleanor wished she could find the words in the way that he had.
His eyes had not left hers, and his lips remain parted as though he was not yet finished.
“I love you.”
CHAPTER 30
Eleanor did not answer him at once, and Julian wished she would.
She did not step back, and she did not move closer. Instead, she stood where she was and looked at him, her attention fixed entirely on his face, searching for something he was certain he had already outright shown.
She had heard him. That was not the question. The question was whether she believed him.
If there was any hesitation in him, she would see it, but that man that stood before her was not uncertain. He had found her, having taken a carriage to her friend's home and asking questions until he found their location. He went as soon as he could in order to see her so that he could finally tell her what she deserved to hear. It had all been for her, and he could only hope that she would accept it.
Eleanor drew a slow breath, and he knew that she was about to speak at last.
“I believed in love once,” she said at last. “Completely. I believed in it without question. I believed that when it was offered, it would be given honestly, that it would not change without reason, and that it would not be withdrawn when it became inconvenient or difficult.”
She did not look away from him.
“I trusted it,” she said. “I trusted him, and it nearly destroyed me. I allowed myself to hope for something that did not exist, and when it ended, it did so without care for what it left behind.”
Julian did not interrupt. There was a feeling in his chest that this was going in a direction that he did not want it to, but he held onto the hope that it would not. It felt strange that they had changed positions so quickly, and Julian noted that if that was how she had felt all this time, he had a lot of groveling to do.
“And then I married you,” she continued, laughing softly. “I told myself that I would not make the same mistake again. I promised myself that I would not expect more than what was given to me. I accepted what you gave, and nothing beyond it. I told myself that was enough, but then that changed. You made me believe that perhaps I had been wrong to deny it, that perhaps this time…”
She did not finish the thought, but the meaning remained clear.
“And then you turned away from me, too.”
Julian did not move. There was an intensity in her eyes that he could not deny, and the guilt was thick in his throat. She had every right to turn him away, and he so desperately did not want her to.
“And now you stand here and tell me that you love me,” she said. “You ask me to believe that this is different. How am I to trust that you will not do so again?”
Eleanor watched him closely, seemingly searching for the same signs she had sought before, any trace of hesitation, any instinct to retreat behind distance or restraint. This time, he did not give her either. Whatever conflict had once existed in him had already been faced, and he did not turn from it.
“I cannot change what I was,” he said, the words given without defense or excuse. “I cannot undo what I have already done, nor can I pretend that I was anything other than what you have described. But I know who I am now. I know who I am with you, and I understand that difference in a way I did not before.”
“But how can I trust that?”
“Speaking plainly, I cannot force you to,” he sighed. “I wish that there was something I could say that would make everything better in an instant, but I cannot.”
“Then how do we manage this?”
“We will not walk away again,” he said simply. “We will both stay, and we will fix this. I want nothing more than to face this with you, Eleanor.”