Chapter 127 127

Chapter 127 127
He laughs hollowly. “I’m sure I did.”

“I’m not saying you’re blameless in all this, Daniil. I’m just saying that you’re not solely responsible for what happened. You were as much a victim as your mother.” I want to touch him so badly, but I’m keeping my distance because watching him flinch away from me is more than I can bear right now. “At some point, you’re going to have to forgive yourself.”

“I don’t want forgiveness. From myself or you or anyone else.”

“So that’s it then?” I ask. “You’re going to punish yourself for as long as you live?”

“Seems fitting.”

“Where’s that gonna get you?” I shake my head. “You’ve been torturing yourself for decades for something that wasn’t your fault, and all you have to show for it is scars that you won’t let anyone close enough to see.”

“Kinsley—”

“Did you mean it?”

He stops short. “Did I mean what?”

“Did you mean it when you told Isla you loved me?”

It takes him a long time to fully process what I just asked him. In the end, all he says is, “You overheard.” Not a question. Just a sentence. More like a death sentence, actually, based on his tone.

I nod grimly as incoming tears I desperately don’t want threaten to sting my eyes. “Yeah, I heard the last bit. I wasn’t trying to or anything. I got your text and headed over to the park. When I spotted you guys, you just seemed so deep in conversation that I didn’t want to interrupt. I didn’t mean to overhear. I really didn’t. But I did, so now, we’re here, and now, I’m asking: did you mean it?”

He doesn’t say anything, and I feel myself shrink. Slowly, irreversibly, right in front of his eyes. Pieces of my soul withering away in real time. I manage to hold back the tears somehow, but I don’t want to push my luck, so I decide to get away before I lose what little control I have left.

“Okay then,” I swallow. “Question answered. I think I’m gonna go and—”

I’m halfway off the couch when his hand shoots out and snares me by the wrist. He’s grabbed me this hard before, usually out of anger, but something about it feels different this time. It’s not desperate, it’s not melancholy, it’s—shit, I don’t even know. I don’t have the words to describe what he is to me right now. What I am to him. All the things that we might be to or with or for each other.

“It isn’t a trick question,” I say quietly as one rogue tear breaks free and trickles down my cheek. “If you have to think, that’s all I need to know.”

“I don’t have to think about my answer,” he says at last. “I know my answer. I just have to figure out a way to explain myself.” His eyes are roiling with something. Some more of that baffling thing I can’t name. “I’m not good at this, Kinsley. I’m not good with the feelings, and the deep conversations, and the delving into the past. I left it all behind me in a cold, concrete jail cell.”

He reaches out and tucks a stray lock of hair back behind my ear. There’s a tenderness in him I’ve never seen before. Every breath, every gesture is suffused with it.

“But I’ll go there for you. It might rip me apart every time, but fuck it, you keep telling me that that’s what love is about, right? Exposing yourself? Shedding your armor? So fuck it. Fuck it all. I love you, Kinsley Whitlow. I’ve loved you since the moment I watched you tumble off that bridge. I love you because you’re brave and because you’re naive. I love you because you’re beautiful, of course, and also because you’re broken—but you’re broken in ways that match the ways I’m broken, too. We’re a fucked-up puzzle, jagged glass with blood on the edges, but it fits. It matches. So if diving in that river was a mistake, then fuck that, too—it was the greatest mistake I’ve ever made, and I’d do it a thousand times over if I had to.”

When he’s done, the only sound in the room is our matched-up breathing and our matched-up heartbeats.

I stroke his cheek with my fingers because I’m pretty sure I might die if I don’t touch him. I’m smiling and crying at the same time. It shouldn’t be possible to feel this many things at once. But I’m feeling them, every single one of them.

“For a guy who says he’s not good at this, you did a pretty good job,” I cry-laugh.

“Well, if it’s alright with you, princess, I’d really like to be done talking.”

I nod and grin. “I’ll allow it.”

“Halle-fucking-lujah.”

Then he pulls me to him and kisses me. Feverishly, passionately, tenderly. It’s overwhelming and it’s everything I wanted since the moment I laid eyes on him.

My arrogant monster.

My arrogant mistake.

My happily-ever-after.

31

DANIIL

I wake up with Kinsley’s head on my chest and a weight in my stomach like a boulder. I have a flight out of Lucerne in five hours, which means I need to leave in three.

My time in this impossible dream is coming to an end.

I gently extricate myself and make my way to the kitchen for a strong cup of coffee. On my way there, my phone pings.

PETRO: Yo. I’m outside. Open up, bitch.

I re-route and open the door for him. He’s standing there in sweats and a t-shirt, looking like he could use a cup of coffee or maybe just a straight-up IV of caffeine. “Morning, jefe.”

“Don’t talk. The girls are still sleeping.”

“You’re as cheery as ever,” Petro grumbles, trotting after me into the kitchen.

I just grunt and make my way to the coffee pot. I pour two mugs full and slide one over to Petro. “Everything all set to go?”

“Of course. I’m taking my security guard responsibilities very seriously.”

“I know you think this job is beneath you—”

“Hey now. That’s not what I think,” he says convincingly. Then he shrugs. “Okay, I may have felt that way in the beginning. But I don’t anymore. It’s a privilege to be the one to take care of Kinsley and Isla while you’re gone.”

“Protect them with your life, sobrat.”

He nods solemnly, out of jokes for once. “I intend to.”

I stroke my chin, lost in thought. “I’m gonna marry her, you know.”

Petro nearly sprays me with a mouthful of hot coffee. “Are you alright? Are you having a stroke? If you smell burnt toast, tell me, because that’s a bad sign.”

I smirk. “I’m serious.”

“That’s a worse sign.”

“Once my fucking father is no longer a threat, I’m going to do it.”

He sighs. “Ah. So it could be years.”

Just like that, I’m on edge again. I shake my head. “It won’t come to that. I’ll be back before the year is over.”

“Daniil, I love you, man, but I think you’re—”