Chapter 160
Elara
For a moment I couldn't process what I'd just heard. The words seemed to hang in the air between us, impossible and surreal, like something my fever-addled brain had conjured up.
Julian Vane loved me? Julian Vane, who had a pregnant fiancée upstairs, who had spent years treating me like an obligation at best and a nuisance at worst, who had stood by while his family destroyed me over and over again—that Julian Vane loved me?
I laughed. I laughed until tears streamed down my face, until my damaged lungs burned and my throat felt like it was tearing apart. I laughed at the cosmic joke of it all, at the cruel irony that the universe seemed determined to play on me again and again.
"Elara?" Julian's voice was uncertain now, almost frightened. "What—"
"You love me." I managed to get the words out between gasps of laughter that were starting to sound more like sobs. "You love me now. Now, Julian. After everything. After all of it." I pressed my hands to my face, feeling the hot slide of tears against my palms. "Do you know how funny that is? Do you have any idea?"
In my first life, I'd given him everything. My body, my art, my dignity, my daughter. I'd loved him so desperately it had consumed me, turned me into something small and pathetic and broken. And he'd looked at me with disgust. With contempt. He'd taken Lily away from me, had stood by while I lost custody, had married Sloane while I drowned myself in the Atlantic with our daughter's ashes clutched to my chest.
And now, in this life where I'd tried so hard to pull away, to protect myself, to build walls high enough that he couldn't hurt me anymore—now he loved me? Now, when I'd already lost Lily forever, when I'd already made the choice to walk away from the Vane family and everything they represented—now he decided to feel something for me?
The laughter died as quickly as it had come, leaving me hollow and shaking. I wiped at my face with the back of my hand, trying to clear the tears enough to see him properly. He was staring at me like I'd slapped him, his face pale and his eyes wide with something that looked almost like fear.
"You love me," I said again, and this time my voice was flat, empty of everything except a bone-deep exhaustion. "And I'm supposed to what, Julian? Fall into your arms? Forget everything that's happened? Forget Sloane and the baby and your family and every single time you've chosen them over me?" Fresh tears welled up, spilling over despite my best efforts to hold them back. "You think loving me is enough? You think saying those words makes up for any of it?"
"Elara, please—"
"I don't love you anymore." The lie tasted like ash on my tongue, bitter and wrong, but I forced it out anyway. "I told you already. I loved you once, so much it nearly destroyed me. But I don't anymore. I can't. So you can take your confession and your guilt and your belated feelings and you can leave. Just go, Julian. Go back to Sloane. Go back to your perfect life."
He flinched like I'd hit him, and for the first time since I'd known him, Julian Vane looked genuinely hurt. Not angry or frustrated or coldly disappointed—actually wounded, like my words had found something soft and vital beneath all that armor he wore and driven straight in.
"I don't believe you." His voice was barely above a whisper. "You're lying."
"Does it matter?" I met his eyes, letting him see the tears, the pain, all of it. "Even if I did still love you—and I'm not saying I do—what difference would it make? You're engaged to Sloane. She's pregnant with your child. You have a whole life planned out with her, a future that doesn't include me except as some dirty secret you keep hidden away."
The words were coming faster now, fueled by all the rage and hurt I'd been holding back. "So no, Julian. You don't get to say you love me and have everything magically be okay. That's not how this works."
"Then tell me how it works." He moved closer, and I could see the desperation in his face now, raw and unguarded. "Tell me what you need. Tell me what I have to do." He reached for my hand and I let him take it, too tired to pull away. "Give me a second chance, Elara. Please. Let me prove that I mean it this time. Let me show you that I can be better, that I can choose you—"
"Stop." I pulled my hand free, ignoring the way his face crumpled at the loss of contact. "Just stop, Julian. You want a second chance? You want me to believe you're serious?" I wiped at my eyes again, trying to clear my vision enough to look at him properly. "Then break up with Sloane."
The words hung in the air between us, sharp and uncompromising. Julian went very still, his expression freezing into something I couldn't quite read.
"If you love me," I continued, my voice steadier now despite the tears still streaming down my face, "if you want a second chance, if any of this is real and not just guilt or obligation or whatever else you're feeling right now—then end it with her. Call off the engagement. Walk away from the perfect future you've been planning with her and choose me instead."
I forced myself to hold his gaze even though it hurt to look at him. "Do that, and maybe—maybe—I'll consider giving you another chance."