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“Well, I can accept that. I can accept… If this is for you.”
She felt raw and wounded. She didn’t feel like it was for her. She felt like her sisters were enjoying their beautiful new life in a palace by the sea, and who could ever ask them to go back to a small house on a frozen mountaintop?
But if she was honest. If she was very, very honest, she also didn’t think that she could ask herself to go back to a life before he was in it.
A life where he wasn’t essential. Where he wasn’t part of it or her.
Because this was the problem. She had spent her life being a certain kind of sheltered. And that night on the mountaintop, she had learned something about herself she hadn’t known before.
That she was sexual. That she…had desires and needs and she had been neglecting them. That she wasn’t just a vessel; she was more than that.
More than just self-sacrifice. It was easy right now to tell herself that what she was doing was for everybody else. But Daisy had given her an out. And sure, she would’ve felt guilty about it. But her sisters did love her.
And she…liked being warm.
She liked the soft bed. She liked having someone to draw her a bath. And she liked seeing Adonis’s beautiful, infuriating face every day.
She couldn’t say that she had feelings for him. Well, perhaps she could. But it was a stretch, she thought, to say that.
But it was also a stretch to say that she felt nothing for him. Or that it was only sex.
Yes. That felt like a stretch too.
And she felt like she was stretching. Every which way.
But if she didn’t feel something, she wouldn’t have been so upset, so offended by what he had said earlier.
By the way he had made her feel when he had rejected her kiss.
Because she had been caught up in the moment. In a romance that apparently hadn’t existed.
She had been caught up in feelings that didn’t… Didn’t really exist.
She had felt silly and small.
And really, poorly. Very poorly.
Because he had been her first kiss, her first lover, and when he hadn’t gotten in touch with her again afterward he had felt like her first rejection. But this really was a rejection. He hadn’t been caught up in his feelings. He hadn’t been unable to resist.
Tears stung her eyes. But she chose not to let them fall. She had a lot of practice with that.
“Don’t worry about me, Daisy. Really. I made my choice. I’m going to be Adonis’s wife. And I’m… Happy about that.”
* * *
Adonis was pacing and scowling.I’m going to be Adonis’s wife, and I’m very happy about that.
He didn’t want to hear her say that. With that sadness in her voice.
But he had overheard all of it. Her telling her sister that something had happened between them. He could also tell that she was upset. And that she was putting on a brave face for her sister.
He had upset her. He had done badly, and she…
In spite of himself, he wondered. He wondered why she was staying.
And this was exactly why he should stay away from her.
Because he couldn’t afford to be distracted by her. It was madness. A madness he didn’t need.