Page 27 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

There's raw want in his eyes, but something else too, something that might be truth when he speaks again. "We both know you won't do it. Because you still want me and it kills you, doesn't it?" His lips trail down my jaw, a maddening brushthat promises everything and delivers nothing. "I know because I want you and it fucking kills me, too."

I inhale sharply, feeling like someone's performing grand pliés on my chest. My pulse hammers in my throat as heat ripples up my spine, spreading outward until I'm burning from within.

Because he's right.

He may not have given me the answer I wanted. The one where he admits he was wrong, that he didn't understand how I've been punishing myself for years over what happened to his mother even though I didn't plan anything, that he not only wants me but that he loves me.

Yet, he's not wrong.

I want him. With a fire that chemotherapy couldn't kill. I still want him.

He's giving me a choice. Or at least the semblance of one. After all, he could grab the shard and call for his men. He's stronger than me. More powerful. More vindictive.

I'm not going to slit his throat, and now I'm faced with the consequences of my decision. My heart hammers against my ribs like those first days after treatment when my body forgot how to maintain rhythm.

"I want..." The word sticks in my throat like those pills that were too big to swallow. Memories flood me, the boy who played piano while I danced, the Beast who locked me away, the lover who made me forget about cancer and scars for one perfect night. "I want..."

"What do you want?" His voice scrapes out like broken glass, like he's truly desperate to know. He called me a viper after making me feel like I could dance again. After touching me, tasting me, worshipping me until I dissolved into pure sensation, until all I wanted was to feel him inside me, so we could become one and for a moment, just be Antonio and Isabella again.

But I need to remember that Antonio and Isabella are no longer who we once were. And we're not the people from my dreams either.

Yet... with him, it's like those missing pieces of myself are clicking back together. I can be the new me without forgetting the old. I want to be strong. I want to be... vulnerable. But I've been burned. Torched. Scorched. My feelings are only a weapon he wants to use against me, against the world. The Antonio who used to make me smile, laugh, and feel safe is gone. Obliterated by my father. By his need for revenge.

A tear slides down my cheek, tracing a path I know too well. I can feel it rolling as he waits for my answer, his eyes burning with something I'm afraid to name.

The air around me thickens before disappearing in a whoosh as my heart seems to hold its breath. Slowly, oh so slowly, I let go of the shard. My heartbeat speeds back up, performing its own dangerous choreography. His eyes widen, just slightly, but I see it. I feel it in my very core. He's surprised I'm not trying to kill him, and that alone sends another blade right into my gut.

All I can hear is our breathing as the shard clatters to the floor with a dull thump.

"I was hoping for you," I whisper before he can say another word, the confession scraping my throat raw. "I was hoping for you and you..." A harsh sob breaks free, the sound ugly and broken like everything between us. "You were hoping to destroy me." More tears. More sobs that I can't control anymore. "In the dark of the nights, in the times when I tried so hard to be strong, I was hoping for you. You became a dream and you turned into a nightmare."

His face remains impassive, but something flickers in those eyes, something that might be pain if I believed he could still feel anything beyond rage.

"When I was getting treatment, I wished for your hand to hold mine. I wished for you to come back and tell me it was going to be okay. I wished for you to hold me until those tears that I cried in the shower while begging the cancer to go away would melt into your arms." The sobs wrack my body, but he doesn't move an inch. He stays completely still, staring into my eyes, so close yet universes away, his body almost melding into mine.

"I never wanted your mom to die. I never gave that letter to my father. I told you I shouldn't have told him I'd rather leave with you and her, but it's not like I knew there was a plan when I blurted that out." The words tumble over each other, desperate to be heard. "I told him to fix things. I didn't know..." More sobs. More pain. More memories crashing through walls I thought were strong enough to hold them back.

"I didn't know who he was back then. I danced and danced and danced, and he called me his princess Ballerina. I... You... You wanted the same thing I did. You wanted him to see you, to choose you, to put you on that poisoned pedestal..."

There's a shadow in his gaze, a darkness that tugs at something deep within me. Like he's remembering the boy he was before flames reshaped his face and soul.

But I can't.

I can't let myself spiral back to a place where he'll hurt me again. I can't just forget his words. What he did. I can't let the part of myself that wants to save him from himself rule my choices. Not now. Not anymore. There's an emptiness in my chest that aches worse than any SVT episode. And that achiness spreads to my throat, making each breath a battle.

My body needs to detach from my feelings. I'm not stupid enough to think this chemistry is more than that, a cruel joke played by biology, by memory, by whatever's left of the girl who once loved the boy who played piano.

"I need you to go," I murmur, then find my voice. "Go."

Maybe part of me is hoping he'll beg for my forgiveness. Or that he'll throw another accusation at me that will make it easier for me to bury his memory where it belongs. Or that he'll kiss the pain away, just for one more moment before reality crashes back.

But he doesn't.

Without a word, he rolls away from me, movements fluid as the predator he's become. He gets up and leaves, not looking back, not hesitating. It's like he was never here at all.

Yet the air feels colder, the large bed emptier as I wrap myself in sheets that still smell like him and broken promises.

And I've never felt more alone.

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