“I mess everything up.”
“Me too.”
I finally turned, meeting his eyes with my own pleading expression. “What if I mess this up too?”
“What if you don’t?”
“Cady told me that Eli was her soulmate.”
Isaac wanted to look away, I could tell. But his eyes stayed steady on me, and that was important.
“They’re bonded.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means even if he wanted to, he couldn’t let Cady go.”
“What if I want you to let me go?”
His smile was resigned. “I’m stronger than my brother.”
“I wanted to fall in love,” I admitted quietly. “I wanted it so much I was willing to see good in people that wasn’t really there.”
“That’s the best part about you, Tara. You find the good things everywhere you look.”
“I saw the good in you, too. At least, I thought I did.” My hand found his for the barest touch. Fingertips brushing. “Tell me it’s real. Tell me that part wasn’t a lie.”
This time, he did look away, scanning the black horizon. “I always thought I was the bad brother. The fuck up.”
I waited.
“I let my family—Jacques—convince me that I was the one who needed to change. To be something different.” He turned back to me, that shadow of resignation replaced by something sharper.
“But there was never anything wrong with me. I’m a monster. It’s true. I’m also loyal. I work hard. I can’t change what I am. I don’t know if that makes me good, but I promise you Tara, I am the man that you know. I’m just—more.”
“More,” I murmured, still grappling with that part. I’d been living under the same roof as someone like him for months and never knew.
“I was looking for you.” Isaac blurted. “I spent my life skirting the edges of what was allowed to find you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought I was dissatisfied with my life. That was why I went looking for novelty. For—" he cleared his throat, “—company.”
Jealousy burned my cheeks. I didn’t want to hear about his company right now.
“Every time I walked away, I felt worse. Emptier. I thought maybe all those things everyone told me about being cursed were true and I was just on the tail of my spiral to madness. But I wasn’t.”
He smiled, a touch of that confidence returning. “I was just waiting for you.Hewas waiting for you.” Isaac tapped the center of his chest, and I knew who he was referring to.
The beast,Eli called it.
That was what spent years—maybe decades—looking for me.
The idea wasn’t as scary as it should be.
What could be more romantic than that? A man like Isaac with all that charm and power and prowess searching every corner of his world—for me.
“What about your cousin? I lived with him.”