Dropping the smile, I let myself remember her crying in the footage I’ve seen, and then focus back on the task at hand now I’m back to reality worth living again. “Tell me, do you still agree with your choice now?”
“Which one?”
I look at the ring on her finger. The same one I bought for her. The same one she’s wearing. It’s the first time I’ve seen it on her other than in my head or in video surveillance. She stares at it, her chest rising under the pressure it creates for her. “I don’t know, Malachi. You were alive when I put it on, and then you were dead. It was the one part of you I had left. That was then. This is now.” She sucks in a long breath, letting her face rest back into that small smile of hers. “I should have known better, shouldn’t I? I’m still a game to you.” My own frown drops. She’s anything but that, no matter what I've put her through the last few months. She’s everything to me, but we needed that time.Ineeded it. “Take the frown off your face, Malachi. I don’t like it. Never did.” She chuckles lightly. “That’s a lie actually. I did like it. I loved it, but not when it meant you’d do what you did because I chose something that didn’t suit you.”
“Mmm. I’ve thought about that. A lot.”
“Well, it looks like you’ve had plenty of time to think about it.” She picks up a few of the files beside her and digs around in her bag, a pen finally pulled out of it. “It’s a shame you didn’t bother telling me you were thinking about it.”
Ten minutes must go by as she scans and signs documents efficiently. She did well with my holdings considering her lack of knowledge. Not that she was entirely on her own. I needed to renegotiate several things from my room at Gray’s, but she still managed to give me the time I needed to clarify reality around me.
It was the first time I’d ever been forced into that clear headed time of honesty. I was under lock and key until he said I could leave. He stopped me phoning anyone, stopped me talking to anyone but who he chose. And I suppose I did heal a little because of it, but none of it changes the fact that I still crave the end somehow. I wish I didn’t. For her, I wish I could see the wonder and possibilities that she finds out there. I don’t. Not yet at least. Maybe more time will change that, and with any luck she’ll forgive me the game Gray played with us both and let me show her someone who’s still trying to find himself for her.
“Do you still want me to have this ring on?” she asks, moving a stack of folders to get to more.
“Yes.” She keeps signing, nodding to herself about something. “But you shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll get lost with me too. You know you will. It’s why you ran.”
No answer other than continuing with her signing. I suppose she’s thinking, probably chastising my ass at the same time for being kept in the dark. She doesn’t know how much that time she’s given me is worth, though. I watched her try this out here, watched her make choices with my wealth that only she would make. And I talked. To Gray mostly, but also to one of his people that helps men like me. We discussed the whys, the hows, the reasons behind who I’ve become and how I can change that if I choose to. I don’t know if I do choose to, but she makes me consider it at least.
“I can’t have that again,” she mutters, closing the last folder and pushing herself away from them. “What you did was blackmail, Malachi. You showed me that the choice I made caused your death because you didn’t like it. I’m not down with that. Let alone the rest of this crap.”
“You ran.”
She throws her hands up in the air. “Jesus. I needed space, Malachi. I had one goddamn minute of thought for me alone. Any bride has that choice. It’s written in bride law somewhere. Didn’t mean I didn’t love you, didn’t mean I wasn’t going to marry you.”
I sigh and nod, unable to explain my actions other than the obvious nature of them. “I was alone. I’m not good alone.” That’s not true. Alone is fine for me, but alone without her has become too lonely. “I also told you not to run from me.”
“You weren’t alone. You had Gray.”
“Gray isn’t you, Alice. Haven’t you worked that out yet? Gray is me. I didn’t need another me in that time. I needed you.” She doesn’t say anything to that. She sits perfectly still, analysing those words. Or maybe she’s just looking at me to try working out if she should even bother trying to find me inside this shell of a human I’ve become. I doubt she should. No matter how much she believes I’m worthy of thought.
“I had to watch it, Malachi. Again. When I found you, you were waiting. Staring. And then I got there and you picked up that syringe and you did it right in front of me. For the third time.”
I sneer, fully appreciative of that statement. “You shouldn’t have had to see that, and I have no explanation for it other than love. I’m sorry, Alice.” Hardest fucking words I’ve ever got out of my mouth, but they’re one of the things I’ve had to navigate. They say it was a cry for help, forherhelp even though I didn’t know she was there the last time. I thought it was the pills throwing me visions of something lovely in the last few minutes. It wasn’t. Gray told me that. If it wasn’t for her I would be dead, but because of her and her screams and her shaking him awake he eventually came round in time. She wasn’t there by then. My men did the right thing. They got her away from the situation to protect me, to make sure she didn’t understand the entirety of what she’d witnessed.
And then Gray took over and called Reggie – his lawyer as well as mine.
“Funny thing is,” she says, getting up from her chair. “None of that has stopped me wanting to wear this ring. None of it stopped me wanting you either.” She stops five feet away from me. “And I guess the fact that you just said what you did means that you do understand why I shouldn’t.”
I look at her, nodding. “I’ve always understood that. It’s who I am, Alice. Who I’ll always be. I’d love to tell you I might be different, but that's a lie. And this is your choice.”
“No, it’s who you’ve had to be. Distinct difference.”
I chuckle lightly, amused at her words. “I’m still who I was. Still manipulative. Still a game player. Still a fucking asshole.”
“Are you, though?” She looks back up to the stack of folders. “Think those say differently. You gave me everything, Malachi. You put all your shit in the hands of someone good. That doesn’t tell me you’re the villain, it tells me you’re the hero.”
Still not a word I consider relevant to me, certainly not after what I’ve put her through. “I didn’t exactly leave it in your hands, Alice. I renegotiated contracts daily. Several times in fact. You were ill prepared for all that my death entails.”
She cocks a brow, and her hip to show her annoyance with that. “Well, you would have done if you were really dead. How does not being dead feel?”
“Better than usual.”
“Why?”
