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He flinched as her fingertips gently caressed his chin and turned his eyes to hers. The sorrow in her eyes made his throat and chest grow tight.

“You should have told me,” she insisted, her tone soft but disappointing. “You should have told me the truth instead of lying and running away.”

“I know,” he choked out.

Hugo cleared his throat, gathering himself, and tentatively reached out to put a hand on her thigh. He was relieved when she neither flinched nor pulled it off of her.

“I was telling the truth about one thing that morning, though. About protecting the weak. You are strong, Seraphina, I knew that from the moment I met you. But as I got to know yoursituation, I understood that you were powerless against your parents. As strong as you were, you were trapped very much in a way I had been once trapped. I wanted to help you. To give you a place where you would not feel such things.”

Seraphina sniffled, glancing away as her eyes grew glassy.

“So our marriagewasout of pity. Not love.”

“At first, yes,” Hugo confessed. “I don’t know if that is right or wrong, but it is the truth. I did not think I could love anyone at all. Not in the way most people love.

“Then you came to live with me. You wormed your way into my heart. You made me laugh, smile. You made feel as if something more than work was worth rising for. But then that terrified me too. Realizing that you were being so kind and wonderful to someone so limited as myself.

“When I saw you with Carrington at the ball I felt like a fraud. Like I had stolen you from a life you deserved. One with people and parties and normalcy.”

“I told you that is what my mother wanted,” she insisted quickly. “That was not what I wanted!”

“I know that now,” he assured her. “Just as I know jealousy is not worth losing you. Just as I now know that nightmares are not worth losing you.”

Seraphina turned back to face him, tears still trickling down her cheeks. She squeezed his hand, a small touch that pushed fresh breath back into his lungs.

“I will work through every nightmare, every regret, every fear of the past, if it means I get to keep you as my wife,” he rasped.

Seraphina’s blank expression crumbled then, and she let out a soft sob as she sagged toward him.

“I love you, Seraphina. Wholly. And I promise you I will never,nevermake you leave my side again,” He vowed.

Seraphina lunged for him then, her arms circling tight around his neck as she began to cry. Hugo’s own face contorted into a sob as he picked her up and placed her in his lap, holding onto her tightly. Relief poured through him as he finally was able to hold her again, so much so his hands trembled, and his burrowed his face into the hair by her ear.

“Let me take you home,” he whispered, rocking them both on the stone bench.

“Oh, Hugo,” she whispered.

Seraphina leaned back just enough to place feathery kisses along his cheeks, nose, and forehead. When her lips met his, he moved her hands to his cheeks and pressed fully into the kiss; reveling in the taste he’d missed so much.

“I love you too,” she whispered when he finally let her pull away, and Hugo’s heart shuttered with reality of it. He was loved.He.The monster. The abused boy.Hewas loved.

Seraphina pulled away a little farther, cupping his cheeks as he cupped hers, and looked directly into his soul.

“But you are right. You will not do this to me again. I could not bear it. From now on you must talk to me. Let me be there to help you as you have helped me.”

“Yes,” Hugo agreed, his tone resolute. “No matter the issue, I will share it with you.”

“Good,” Seraphina said with a nod.

She then stood up from his lap, surprising him, and held out her hand to him.

“Now take me home,” she demanded, a spark of desire lighting her tear-stained face for a moment. “You have much to make up for.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“At last,” Hugo groaned, pulling her in for a kiss.

Seraphina whimpered as she felt his hand wrap around her throat; a touch she’d very much missed. She leaned her body into her husband’s. Their lips merged sweetly, seductively, as they finally stood together again in Hugo’s quarters. With one hand still wrapped around her throat, he rose the other to her hair, and freed her long brown locks from its pin. Immediately both of his hands pushed into it, taking great grasps as their kiss grew deeper.