Elizabeth’s fingers curled around the card, gripping it like a lifeline.
A long silence stretched between us before she spoke, her voice soft, trembling slightly under the weight of her vulnerability.
“Why are you helping me?”
Her question was raw, stripped bare.
“Why do you care?”
I hesitated.
Because I shouldn’t.
Because I couldn’t.
But the words left me before I could stop them.
“Because you shouldn’t be treated this way.”
My voice was steady, but inside, a war raged.
“And because you deserve better than this.”
It was the truth.And it came from a place of honor I had long feared was dead within me.
I forced aside the heat coiling in my blood, the pull of something far more dangerous than desire.
She studied me in the dim glow of moonlight, her gaze searching, weighing me with a scrutiny that made my chest tighten.
And then, finally?—
“Thank you.”
A whisper, yet deafening.
“I don’t know what I’ll do.”
She bit her lip, hesitating, before tilting her head slightly.The weight of her eyes on mine was like a thread binding us together.
“I take my words back,” she murmured.“You’re not like them.”
A pause.
“You might think you are, but you’re not.”
The words struck harder than they should have.
Because she didn’t know.
She didn’t know.
I was worse.
Far, far worse.
A monster wrapped in a man’s skin.
And yet?—
