Page 53 of Earn Me

"At least tell me why—-"

"Please just go." Her voice broke. "I don't want to hear anymore."

She turned to leave, and something inside Keiran snapped.

He couldn't lose her again.

Not like this.

"Don't do this." Keiran moved after her, not touching her but close enough that she stopped. "Please don't leave me. Don't—" His own voice cracked. "Tell me what you want, I'll give it to you. It's not like before now. I'm not...I was never...I won't make life hard for you again."

But all she did was stare at him, with tears running down her cheeks.

God, please.

Why did it feel like the more words he said, the more the distance between them grew?

Please help me.

Keiran tried again, more desperately. "I...I have a home in France. More than one, actually. They're all yours. We can live there. Or wherever you want. Whatever you want. I'll... I'll even pretend I like your parents. You can choose them over me anytime. I'll make it up to you any way—"

"Stop it." Cadence could no longer bear hearing more of these concessions.

"Then tell me," he bit out. "Tell me—-"

"There's nothing you can do," she said shakily. "Nothing. I can't keep being a burden—-"

"You werenevera burden," Keiran gritted out.

"Then what would you call being forced to marry me because of a blood debt?" she demanded brokenly.

Keiran could not believe what he was hearing.

"I don't want—-"

Fingers gripped her shoulders, cutting her words short.

And then he was giving her a hard shake as if he believed she had lost her senses.

"You got it all wrong," Keiran said fiercely. "Completely wrong."

"M-My b-brother—-"

"—-wanted to kill me for marrying you."

She stared at him, unable to understand what he was saying.

"He wanted me to protect you from afar. Not make you my wife and have you enter the world he had tried to keep you from."

"I d-don't understand."

"I had no right to be with you," Keiran said unevenly. "But you were just so hard to stay away from. And you just keep getting into trouble, and the next thing I knew—-"

Cadence could barely hear his voice over the thunderous pounding of her heart.

Was this really happening?

Was it?

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