“You aren’t breaking, though! You never break. You’re Emilia Lancaster. You’re the goddamn queen. You’re fucking indestructible. I’m the idiot who makes an asshole of himself time and time again, begging for you to acknowledge what’s between us. And time and time again, you walk away. You shut me out. You deny me. If anyone is inflicting pain in this scenario, it’s you.”
My voice is shaking. “You think I’m indestructible? You think I can’t break? I’m breaking right now, in this very moment. I’m so broken, I can’t remember ever being whole. I’m in fucking pieces, Carter. I can barely hold myself together. And every time I touch you, every time I so much as look at you, that mask of composure I wear for the rest of the world threatens to shatter all over again.”
A wet drop hits my collarbone — a tear. Carter’s tear. When I feel it, something inside me withers and dies, the flower of a vine that never stood a chance against the cold reality of its climate. Before I can stop myself, before I can talk myself out of it, I turn in his arms. His eyes, so endlessly blue, are shining with emotions he’s struggling to keep at bay. The sight of it is a knife straight into the fabric of my soul.
My hands tremble as I reach up and cup his beautiful, miserable face. My thumbs brush the sharp planes of his cheekbones, wiping away all traces of tears.
“Don’t. Please don’t. I can’t stand to see you like this,” I whisper desperately. “God, Carter, can’t you see that all we do is break each other? Can’t you see that this is going to destroy us both? If we keep doing this… I’m not going to survive. And neither are you. It hurts too much. And it’s only getting harder.”
“I know,” he rasps, his voice ragged.
“We’ve been lying to ourselves, thinking we can somehow coexist platonically in this world. The truth is, I can’t be around you without being consumed by you. I wish I were stronger. I wish I could keep my distance. But I can’t. I try and I fail, over and over and over again. Caught up in this vicious cycle of wanting you when I know full-well I can’t have you.” My head shakes. “This… it has to end. We have to end it. For good, this time.”
“How the fuck are we supposed to do that, Emilia? How the fuck am I supposed to stay away from you? The last three months have been hell. Every day, wondering where you were, how you were, whether you were still fucking breathing. Catching glimpses of you on the front of magazines, on news broadcasts. Hearing your name in line at the cashier, on busy street corners.” Carter’s brow is furrowed with anger and agony. “Is that really all I’m supposed to survive on? Is that all I’ll get of you now? Fragments of a stranger on a television screen? Pieces of a girl I used to know, with the safety of an international border between us?”
My whisper is hollow. “I wish I could see any other way.”
He’s silent for a long time, Adam’s apple bobbing roughly. “So that’s it, then? Huh? I go to Switzerland and you marry someone else and we forget we ever mattered to each other?”
“No.” A tear escapes from the corner of my eye. “I’ll never forget. I can’t. You are engraved on my heart, Carter Thorne. Far too deeply to ever be removed. You should know that by now. Whether you’re here or a world away… Whether this is the last moment we ever spend together… I will never stop thinking about you. I will never stop wishing things could be different.”
His jaw clenches so tightly, I know he doesn’t trust himself to speak. His eyes are burning into mine, full of unchecked emotion. Longing, lust, desire, despair.
I want to look away.
I want to look forever.
But we don’t have forever.
We only have this moment.
Reaching up, he slowly pulls my hands from his face. I let my arms fall limply to my sides, feeling utterly defeated.
There’s nothing to say.
There’s everything to say.
“I guess this is goodbye, then,” he says starkly, turning from me. “I’ll move up my timeframe. I’ll…” He swallows. “I’ll be gone by morning.”
“Carter.” I choke out his name on a sob, shaking from head to toe. He goes still as my words spill across the space between us in a heartbroken flood. “Maybe it’s too late to say it. Maybe I shouldn’t say it at all because it’s selfish, because it won’t change a damn thing, because you’re leaving. But you should know that I…” I falter for a second, then steel my shoulders and force myself to keep going. To say the words I’ve been to scared to say for so long. “I love you.”
The world quiets, holding its breath. The very clouds overhead seem to tremble, caught in suspended animation. Carter slowly turns back toward me, his face haunted in the moonlight. His mouth opens, but no words escape.
“Do you hear me?” I whisper, stepping toward him. Closing some of the distance. “I love you, Carter.”
His eyes widen as something like shock reverberates through his entire body. A muscle in his jaw leaps, a telltale sign he’s struggling for control.
“I…” I’m crying full-force now. My head tilts back, trying to stem the flow, but it’s no use. I weep as the words tumble out. “I loved you since the first moment we met, in the back of that stupid SUV, the day my universe flipped upside down. I loved you in the torrential rain on a stone garden bench. I loved you on a dance floor in a gilded ballroom. I loved you on a dark night in a moonlit greenhouse. I loved you beneath the stars on a castle turret. I loved you when I was turning my back, walking away, pretending not to care. I loved you for all of it. Every moment, every breath, every fight, every heartbeat.”
He looks like he’s been sucker-punched.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I’m sorry I wasn’t braver.” My voice fractures along with the battered organ inside my chest. “I love you so much it makes me hate you. It makes me hate me. Because I can’t have you. I can’t be with you. If things were different, if we were different, I’d scream it from the fucking rooftops, Carter. I’d tell the world how I felt.”
“Emilia…” His eyes are watering again, red-rimmed with suffering. The sight breaks me.
“The only reason I didn’t say it before is I thought it would make it harder. But this is already the hardest thing in the world — the thought of staying away from you. Of never seeing you again.”
His cheeks are wet with tears.
“I…” I choke on my own emotions. “I had to tell you now, before you go… before this ends…” My tears are a torrent, so thick I can barely see his face anymore. “I love you. I love you. I love—”
His mouth hits mine, cutting off the rest of my speech. His hands delve into my hair, scattering pins across the terrace. I don’t even notice. My arms wind around his waist, fisting in the fabric of his suit. My lips part beneath his.
His kiss is the first day of spring after a deep freeze, awakening my every nerve ending. I am a flower brought back to life by his sunlight. And there on the balcony, beneath a star-studded sky, we bloom together with reckless abandon. A beautiful, breakable thing — fleeting as an April morning, fragile as a flower petal.
We were never built to last.
On his lips, I taste the salt of two sets of tears. I taste the beat of two hearts wrecked by a devastating endgame.
I taste goodbye.
Our mouths memorize each other. I try to commit every facet of this moment to memory. The firmness of his lips, the slight stubble on his jawline. We cling together, both in unbearable pain, prolonging the moment of parting as long as possible.
The sweetest kiss; the saddest farewell.
In my heart, I know this is the last time I’ll touch him like this. Kiss him like this. Feel his heat and his warmth. Smell the spice of his skin. Trace the dark slashes of his eyebrows, the strong bridge of his nose.
Never again will we allow ourselves to succumb to the relentless gravity that pulls us together. Once we step back, it’s over. Once we pull apart, it’s done.
The end of us.
For good this time.
I feel impossibly sad.
My sorrow knows no bounds. It is an immense thing, too big to fit inside my heart. Perhaps that’s why my chest feels this way — as though it’s cracking in two, fissures erupting between each rib, brittle bone fragments piercing my lungs until I can barely breathe.
Goodbye, Carter.
Goodbye, my love.
Goodbye, my life.
“What the hell are you two doing?” a voice interrupts.
Familiar.
Female.
We spring apart like two opposing magnets, mouths tearing away, hands falling to sides. It’s too late, though. In horror, I turn to face the redhead standing on the terrace.
Her hands are planted on her hips. Her wide blue eyes are locked on us — moving from her brother to her sister and back again in what I can only describe as horrified disbelief.
Fuck.
Chapter Eleven
“What the actual fuck?”
“Chloe,” I plead. “This isn’t what it looks like—”
“Really?” Her brows are by her hairline. “Because it sure as shit looks like the two of you are out making out like handsy teenagers on prom night.”
I hear Carter sigh, but I don’t turn to look at him. I can’t. None of my limbs are cooperating.
Chloe’s eyes narrow. “You know, for a while now I’ve suspected there was something going on between you two. All those longing looks, those heated exchanges… I figured it was just an attraction. Some forbidden flirtation. Maybe a bit of unfulfilled sexual frustration. Christ, I never thought you’d actually be stupid enough to act on it. I thought you were smart enough to stop before you crossed that line. Especially here, of all places. You’re right out in the open, for anyone to see!”
Horror dawning in a wave, my eyes dart past her. Galizia and Riggs are stationed at the doors to the terrace, preventing anyone else from coming outside. That should be a relief, but all I feel right now is shame that we’ve been caught. That we’ve been so incredibly reckless. That we ever let things get this far.
How could we have been so stupid?
“Don’t worry. Everyone else is at the auction. No one saw you. You got lucky… this time, at least.” She shakes her head, as if to clear it. “God, what the hell are you two thinking? Actually, I take back that question, because it’s pretty damn clear you aren’t thinking. Not at all. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing this.”
“Chloe—” I start, but Carter cuts me off.
“We aren’t doing anything. Not anymore.” He steps forward, past me, so I can’t see his face. Whatever expression he’s wearing makes Chloe go pale. Her lips part, a question poised there, but he beats her to it.
“This — what you just saw — is over now. It won’t happen again. It was… a goodbye.”
“A goodbye?” she echoes, blinking rapidly.
He nods.
“I don’t understand. What does that mean, Carter?”
His voice is empty of all emotion when he answers. “I’m leaving. Tomorrow morning. First thing. And… I won’t be coming back.”
Chloe goes even paler. “What? Tomorrow? But—”
“You can come visit me in Switzerland whenever you want.” He takes a few steps forward, slides his hand behind her neck, and pulls her in to deposit a kiss on her forehead. His tone goes soft. “I love you, baby sister. And no matter where I am, I’ll always have your back. Even if you are a pain in my damn ass, sometimes. You say the word, I’ll get to you. I promise.”
“B-b-but… I don’t want you to go,” Chloe says, each word clogged with tears. “I don’t know how to do this without you.”
“Do what?”
“Exist.”
“I’m only a phone call away.”
“But you said you’d stay,” she whispers forlornly. “Until I was better.”
“You are better.”
“I’m a mess!”
“You’ll be fine without me. You’re strong. Stronger than you know.”
“I’m not,” she insists. “And I don’t understand this! I don’t understand why you have to leave so abruptly.”
“Chloe. This— this is just the way it has to be, right now. For everyone.”
My heart has turned to cement inside my chest. It feels heavier than an anvil. Surely, any minute now, it’s going to break through my flimsy ribcage and clatter to the cold terrace.
This is the way it has to be.
Chloe is glowering darkly at her brother, but the tears leaking down her face undermine the look.
“Don’t go,” she begs, one last ditch attempt.
He takes a shuddering breath, shoulder muscles flexing beneath the fabric of his suit jacket, and forces himself to pull away from her. “I’ll call you when I get there.”
“Carter, wait— Carter!”
She calls after him but he doesn’t stop. He’s already striding toward the doorway, each step taking him a little further from me. I watch him slowly walk away, heart cleaved in two inside my chest. Telling myself to run after him. Knowing full-well that I cannot.
My stomach turns to lead.
My lungs go still as stone.
My eyes fill with unshed tears.
I wait for him to turn. To look back, one last time. One last look. One last image to burn into my brain — of blue blue blue eyes and that soul-stealing smirk. One last glimpse at the love of my life, before he slips away forever.
But he doesn’t.
Doesn’t pause.
Doesn’t turn.
Doesn’t glance back.
With determined strides, he steps around Riggs and disappears inside the museum. Taking my heart and all my hopes with him.
Chloe looks at me, desperation and confusion warring for control over her features, but I have no words to soothe her. No answers or explanations that will reassure her everything will be all right.
Because it won’t.
Because I won’t.
Not without him.
Not ever again.
The creak of my bedroom door swinging inward makes my broken heart clench painfully. I don’t open my eyes to look; they are far too eager to see a particular broad-shouldered form stepping over the threshold. I cannot bear the disappointment of seeing whoever has come in his place.
Though, I suppose I’d better get used to it.
It will never be him at my door again.
Just thinking those words makes it hard to breathe. I keep hoping, as the hours tick by, as the day wanes on, that it will get easier. That with time, the ache inside my bones will lessen from this piercing pain to a manageable thrum. That I will be able to climb from this bed, find my feet, face the world.
But my hopes are as hollow as my dreams for a different sort of future. One that doesn’t end with me lying here alone while Carter starts a new life in another country, a thousand miles away.
It was idealistic of me to ever wish for a different sort of endgame. We were always bound to break. I know that now. I can see, with the benefit of hindsight, that the paths we are destined to walk have now so thoroughly diverged, there is no circumstance in which we ever find our way back to each other. Not in this lifetime.
He’s gone.
And my heart with him.
The weight of a warm body lands beside mine on the bed. I recognize her without opening my eyes, the strawberry scent of her shampoo a soothing source of familiarity.
Chloe.
Crawling across the mattress, she cocoons her limbs around mine, spooning me through the thick fabric of my duvet. Her arms tighten like a vise. As if she knows how much I need someone else to hold me together today.
“I’d ask how you’re doing, but seeing as it’s four o’clock in the afternoon and you’ve yet to leave your bed, I think I know the answer already.” Her voice is wry, but there’s a sadness buried between her words. I’m not the only one who’s lost someone, today. In fact, she probably has more right to fall apart than I do. She’s lost her brother.
I’ve lost…
I don’t have w
ords for what Carter is to me.
Was to me.
Past tense, Emilia.
Get used to putting him there.
Part of your past.
I know Chloe misses him too, but I have no energy left to comfort her. It’s taking every ounce I possess to keep from caving in on myself, crumbling beneath the weight of my own emotional wreckage.
“Just twitch or something if you’re alive under there,” she teases in a murmur. “Please?”
With a deep sigh, I roll over so I’m facing her. She peels the blankets slowly back from my face and, when our eyes meet, I see my own sadness reflected back at me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“For what?”
“Being a mess.” I swallow hard. “And for…”
“Hiding your secret love affair with my older brother?”
I nod.
Her lips tug up in a half-smile. “I was pissed last night when I walked outside and saw you two together. But the truth is, I think I was mostly pissed neither of you told me — that I had to stumble upon it like some stranger.” Her lips flatten, the smile vanishing. “I confide all my secrets to you, Emilia. Even the things I’m ashamed of. The very worst parts of myself. It hurt to realize you don’t do the same. That you don’t trust me enough to share certain parts of your life with me.”
“Chloe, no. That’s not it.” I reach out from under the blankets and take her hand in mine. “I trust you. I trust you more than anyone. But this secret… it felt too big to share. Not because I thought you’d judge me. Because even admitting it out loud meant…”
“Acknowledging it was happening?”
“Yes.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “And for a long time, I was in denial about it. I didn’t want to face the fact that I…”
“Love him,” she finishes softly, marveling a little. “You love him. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.”
“I wasn’t exactly advertising it.”
She’s silent for a long while. “This probably won’t help, today of all days, but… He loves you too, you know.”
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