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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“Morgan,” Helena breathed, looking upon the sketches before her. “These are…these are magnificent.”

“You are magnificent,” he told her, standing by her side.

As promised, Morgan had explained everything. From the moment he began to have romantic feelings for her, right up until he left her home. When he was finished, he had pulled out the sketches — over a dozen — that he had done of her while she had been in Ashfield with Luke.

They had astonished her, the realness of his lines, the glow that he had captured. But, while the women in the drawings held some of her likeness, they were not her. They could not be. The woman he had drawn was so much more.

“These are not me,” Helena protested, tracing her finger along a curved line on one of the drawings, “I am… I am not this beautiful.”

“They are how I see you,” Morgan said softly, laying a hand on her shoulder.

Her cheeks flushed as she instinctively leaned into Morgan’s touch.

“You are Persephone, are you not?” he asked, his tone slightly teasing as his hand slipped to the back of her neck.

She let out a dry laugh and turned her gaze towards him.

“Only at theDevil’s Masquerade,” she retorted.

“Mmm.” Morgan grunted, shaking his head slightly. “You see, I must disagree with you there. “When you are happy, Helena — genuinely happy — you glow. Your inner light blasts into the surrounding darkness and floods it with life. Just as Persephone’s did in the underworld.”

Helena felt a lump form in her throat as she listened to Morgan’s emphatic words. There was no flattery, no seduction. It was just raw truth.

“Only you have made me glow like this,” she rasped, turning away from the sketches.

“It was an honor,” Morgan replied, stroking the back of her neck.

Helena turned to him sharply, her emotional reverie brought up short by one particular word.

“Was?” she asked.

Morgan’s lips twitched as he let out a rueful laugh, his eyes filling with sadness.

“In light of every possible way that I failed you, I would assume so,” he replied, though there was a ring of hope in his voice.

“You failed at nothing,” she countered. “In fact your success in everything you have done has been phenomenal.”

Morgan gave her a puzzled look.

“How so?” he ventured slowly.

“Well, not only were you successful in completing my list of goals, saving my life, and getting my brother to give my freedom back to me, you have also succeeded in making me unbelievably angry.”

Morgan laughed, and she could not help but smile in return.

“The only thing you failed at was giving in to my request to take my maidenhood.” She continued. “Though I was — and still am — very disappointed by that, I am grateful.”

“You have no idea how hard that was,” Morgan replied, his smile fading. “I wanted you. God, I wanted you from the moment I saw you at the first masquerade, but Helena, things were becoming so twisted, and you were so…”

“I know,” she replied, not wanting to relive the moment all over again.

“You have spoken your truths. Now it is time for me to speak mine, so here they are. When I asked you to help me with my list, I thought that I would be able to have these experiences without the need for love and enjoy them. I had intended to keep them as precious memories of the time when I was bold enough to strike out and realize my desires.

What I have come to realize is that thereasonI enjoyed all of these things with you was because you made me feel safe, and I now believe that such desires cannot be felt the way I felt them without that sense of safety. That safety did not come out of nowhere. It had always been there, ever since you came into our lives as a boisterous boy. I did not realize how heavily I leaned on it until you were no longer there.”

“My love for you has existed since I became a part of your family,” Morgan replied. “I just had no idea that it could ever become romantic until we struck our bargain.”