Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
“I did what I see Mom doing all the time. I self-destructed. Self-sabotaged. Because that’s all I knew growing up. I never wanted to be like her, but that’s how...that’s still how I ended up being, and when I lost you, when you didn’t want to talk to me again—it had to happen because that was the only way for me to know...I wasn’t alright. I never was. And Mom...never was, too.”
I look at Arkane, and I know he’s beautiful and all, more so in his Regency-era jacket and breeches. A nobleman every inch, but more than that, from the moment we met, he was—and still is—a noble man, and it hurts so, so much—
“I k-know it’s no excuse,” I whisper brokenly, “but Mom...she started treatment for post-partum two years ago, and she’s changed. I also had help.” From God. “I needed people to help me process...” Painful truths like hurt people hurt, and it’s no less true even between mothers and daughters. “I’m j-just so s-sorry—”
“Tiara.”
His hand comes up to my chin, the lightest possible pressure, lifting my face so I can’t look anywhere but at him.
My name on his lips.
I don’t think I’ll ever take the sound of it for granted again—
“You know.”
A choked sob escapes me.
“Don’t you?”
God. Oh God.
My knees have started knocking against each other. Because he’s right. I do know, and the crushing weight of knowing what I know, it always makes me feel like I’m about to fall apart any moment—
Two years ago, I was crying in my dorm room, and in a moment of weakness, I had asked Icelle—
‘Why? Why can’t he just talk to me? I kissed another guy, but it’s not like—’
‘Did you ever wonder why he was late that time?’
‘Grad school always—’
‘He was late because he had to prepare everything. He was planning to propose that evening.’
And Icelle, whose soul was the kindest and the purest even if people said all sorts of things about her—
‘If you had waited just a little longer, he would have given you the words you wanted.’
She knew she had to say the truth out loud.
Because that was how it worked in tales of love and magic.
It was how God designed them to be.
Some truths were so, so painful to accept that they had to be spelled out, and then and only then, would truth set one free.
Just like tonight.
The first and only man I fell in love with, and whom I never stopped loving—
“I’m so sorry for being an idiot.”
I’m wailing the words out like a child, and it’s not just because it’s raining harder than ever, and I need to raise my voice to get myself heard.
“I’m s-so sorry for not seeing what I should have seen from the start.”
It’s because truth has a way of humbling everyone, making us realize how we tend to lie, lash out, and do silly things like children when we’re hurting—
“P-Please forgive me.”
And just like a kid, there are times when we realize how powerless we are, and all we can do is cry and beg for a chance to make things up.
“I’m s-so sorry—”
Something in his jaw works once. His hand at my chin slides to the side of my neck.
Then Arkane hauls me into his arms.
And his kiss...
Oh, this kiss that burns and consumes all the way to my soul—
Dare I hope, God?
Dare I?
Dare I believe that he’s truly forgiving me even when I feel like I don’t deserve to be forgiven?
Chapter Four
THIS DIDN’T CHANGE anything.
The words sounded right in his mind, but why did they strike his heart like it was a curse?
This didn’t change anything.
Arkane first started hearing it the moment Tiara told him of the things he knew deep down were what Icelle had tried her best to tell him long ago.
‘I need you to listen to me. Please.’
And though he had known even then that his stepsister would only beg for the most painful of things, the ones that really made her normally tough heart start to break—
‘There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.’
It had been the same for him, and Tiara’s betrayal had him reeling so fucking bad—
‘Do not make me turn my back on you, too.’
That no one had even mentioned her name in his presence again.
Because they all knew, even when he had already moved out, and Arkane had started drowning himself in work—
They all knew.
He had never stopped reeling since that night.
And that was why—
Even though to have her in his arms like he did now was like regaining the missing pieces of his heart—
This didn’t change anything.
And even though her body was still trembling against his side, her tears were still falling, and she was following him without question like his heart had enslaved hers for life—
This didn’t change anything.
He took her to his home. His room. His bed.