Page 72 of Cara

He got here so fast.

He chased after you.

I’m scared, so scared, to offer him my eyes but when I do, hesitantly, his fist tightens around his car keys. It shocks me that he’s crying. Crying like he’s never felt true fear until now. Crying like he’s losing some internal battle I can’t see, frozen in place, eyes expanding so wide that I’m able to catch his pupils overtaking the green irises as he stares at me, witnessing my own tears as they trail past my cheeks—because this is real.

Not a dream. Not a figment of the past.

This isreal.

We weren’t supposed to meet again. We said goodbye. All my years were supposed to pass in a blur, still reminising those final moments on that unpaved driveway.

“Sophie,” he rasps, forcing my name out of his mouth.

His voice breaks my hold, everything flooding back to me. Victoria. Rosa. The red-haired child.Hischild.

My chest shrinks. It goddamnshrivelsas I push past him. The staircase groans beneath my feet while I rush through the unimpressive foyer and out the door, charging into the night.

The sky is drenching the world with rain, fitting for this moment, this unimaginable crushing weight in my chest.

Before I can reach the car door, my hand is seized.

Xavier is anything but gentle, gathering me in his arms,effortlessly hauling me off my feet. We gasp as one, the world suspending before our mouths crash together.

A breath of life.

Living. It makes sense again as my hands dive restlessly into his hair, into sleek, rain-soaked curls. All of my belongings are pooling in puddles along the sidewalk. His fingers dig into my back, their warmth radiating to my skin as they drift to the cusp of my neck. Our breaths mingle, thick with unspoken desire as the world around us fades to inconsequence.

Xavier’s lips part mine with a flattening force, a branding of love. Devotion. Need.

The rain cleanses my tears, my fears, and my losses.

I am one again, no longer alone, safe in the arms of my protector, feeling him shake as badly as I am. It's not the raindrops or the rising wind. He inhales my breath, his bottomless eyes becoming wells into his soul. Xavier’s lips never leave my face, grazing my cheeks, my chin, my eyes. He pours love onto me, reminding me it can exist.

This feeling is real. The worldcanbe beautiful; it doesn’t always need to terrify me.

“Cuore mio,” Xavier whispers, his lips trembling against my cheek.My heart.

His breath is so warm, so close. I tilt wherever he touches, that beating force inside me coiled tight. “Xavier.”

As if it shocks him to hear my voice, he exhales in a rush, holding me tighter. He pulls back, just enough to look at me.

The calm, collected man I knew years ago rarely lost his composure, so the lost look in his eyes now is something new.

My legs unwind from him. My boots find the ground, but he doesn’t release me. My hands frame his face as he embraces my jaw, our fingers swiping away tears as they fall.

He couldn’t cry when I married him, but I always knew the tears were there, trapped under a well-guarded wall of guilt and trauma, another burden his father had drilled into him.

I saw his tears for the first time when he sent me away.

I wonder if he’s cried as much as I have without him.

How long? How long has he thought I'm dead?

Since Madrid,she said.

My sister’s revelation explains why he’s shaking this bad, why his grip is so suffocating. To him, I'm a ghost.

When I step back, his fingers flex in refusal at first, but he does eventually release me. I take in his gloriousness from a distance, letting the rain soak my disheveled hair and tight athletic wear. He doesn’t know that I’ve been wearing this for days or that blood has dried into the gray nylon fabric. “I'm… I'm sorry I broke into your house.”