I shut my eyes. “Yeah. I was furious. I saw him talking to you, and it all just came back.”
“Willow.” Rose’s eyes widen, her voice tinged with horror. “She took my place. She’s the one he married because he didn’t want me anymore.”
“Yes. And she became a shell,” I say quietly. “I saw it happen. I saw the way he broke her, the way he wore her down from what she was. He took every good thing from her and made her like this. It could have been you.”
Rose shakes her head. “Everything you did. That night we spent together… the sheet… it was all because of him?”
“I know. I know I wrecked everything we had,” I say, trying to force as much strength into my voice as I can. It’s still not enough to cover the despair. “The worst part was hurting you so badly. But I believed it was the only thing I could do, and I thought that mattered more than anything else.”
Even now, I don’t know if it could have been different. I want it to have been different. But would anything else have worked?
Sometimes I wonder if I could have spoken to my mother. Maybe she would have convinced my father to make a deal with Dmitri’s father, to give him some concession in exchange for releasing his claim on Rose. Maybe they would have arranged something for Rose and me, had us engaged to stop Dmitri’s claim.
But that didn’t seem like an option at the time. I’d heard Dmitri, seen the way he flaunted his plans. Would he even have cared if his father had told him no, or would he have kept pushing?
Would he have done something to hurt Rose anyway, just to get what he wanted?
I don’t know. I’ll never know.
“I would have… I would do anything to save you from that life,” I say quietly. I correct myself because it’s true. No matter what else has happened between us since then, that will never change.
I would try to save her again and again. Any way I could.
“I can’t believe you thought that was the only way,” Rose says, her voice strained.
“Believe me, I did.” I exhale sharply as I think back to that day in the cafeteria, as I held the sheet in my hands, the future I wanted just out of reach. “It was all I thought I could do.”
“But in front of everybody? And without saying anything?”
“I know.”
It wasn’t right. I left her out of the decision, kept her ignorant to something so dangerous that she was directly involved in. She had a right to know.
Rose had a right to know that Dmitri was after her. She had a right to know why I seemingly threw away a perfect relationship. But I was a teenager, a young man trying valiantly to protect someone he cared about.
I was stupid. And I’m paying for it now.
“Poor Willow,” Rose murmurs, and I’m sure she’s imagining how haunted the other woman looks. How drugged she is. She shudders a little, her body shaking against mine.
“My father would never have agreed to it,” she adds after a moment, her voice firm.
I clench my teeth again, my jaw tensing. I know how much she loves that man. I know she thinks the world of him. I can see it in her eyes any time she talks about him.
But fuck Antonio Donovan.
He’s proven himself to be a liar and a double-crosser, and it’s clear he doesn’t have the strength to protect his daughter when it comes down to it.
If he did, she wouldn’t be engaged to me now.
“I wasn’t sure about that,” I say. “I’m still not.”
Rose doesn’t argue, just shakes her head, her eyes going unfocused as she gets lost in some private thought.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” I say again. I don’t know if I could ever say it enough. “Everything between us was real. I believed it was. I still do.”
Rose blinks, dragging in a shuddering breath as she looks at me, her green eyes shadowed in the darkness.
“Youdidhurt me,” she whispers softly, and I swear my heart cracks open at her quiet words. “I wish you had told me. I wish you hadn’t kept the truth from me. But if what you’ve said about Dmitri is true…” She shakes her head, wrapping her arms around herself. “Then you saved me too.”
