Page 99 of The Villain

What was the point of the truth if it didn’t come with his trust? What benefit was an explanation about the past if he wasn’t willing to risk opening himself to our future?

I bit my lip and swallowed down a sad laugh.One night with him was all it took to think about a future…and to turn me into a fool.It was more than one night, that was why. It was every night—every single moment from the second my car exploded and threw me into his arms. The nights he sat and held my hand. The days he cared for me in every way imaginable. The honesty he’d given me about things he hadn’t told anyone else.

Time was just one factor when it came to knowing someone, just like sight was just one sense available to discern your surroundings. Without sight, I’d learned to navigate life. I’d fumbled and fallen, but I’d also adapted, my other senses becoming stronger because of it. And without time, the way I felt about Dare had fumbled and fallen but ultimately had grown.

“Of course he does.Love makes people do stupid things,” she said, and for a second, I swore she was talking about herself, but I had to be mistaken.

“How do you forgive someone who doesn’t want to be forgiven?”

“He wants to be forgiven, he just needs time. Hard to believe you deserve forgiveness when you’ve gone so long telling yourself you don’t.”

We both turned at the commotion in the hallway, Rhys and Harm’s voices booming suddenly from the elevator.

“Athena.” Harm filled the doorway. “He’s asking to see you.”

My heart stumbled.Dare.

“Go.” Rob stood, taking my almost-finished cup of tea from my hands.

“Thank you,” I murmured when I reached Harm, staring up at a face that was familiar.

I hadn’t known Harm in high school. By the time Mom stopped homeschooling me and I transferred there for junior year, he’d already graduated and had joined the military. Therewere photos of him, of course, but those tiny images and decades that spanned the war would’ve made him unrecognizable if I didn’t already know who he was.

But I did. And because I did, I saw the resemblance between Dare and his older brother.

“No, thank you.” His solemn expression said it all. I’d managed to reach Dare in a way none of them had been able to, and as much as that thought filled me with hope, it stung with equal pain, knowing it might not be enough.

“Dare?” I called, opening the door.

It was strange to enter the cabin this way—as a guest—when I’d been the one living there for weeks. But then again, all the tables had turned. Where I’d been the one injured and vulnerable, now he was. Where I’d needed to take a risk to trust him, now he needed to do the same.

One turn of my head confirmed the cabin was empty.But Harm had said…

A flicker of light caught my eye through the front windows.He was outside.I went to the door, opening it to a sky that bled the pink and purple of a summer sunset…and to a man who stood tall and beautiful no matter how his life had tried to break him.

“Dare.”

He faced me, shoving whatever was in his hands in his back pocket and out of sight. “Athena.”

My gaze greedily stole over him. Knowing how it was to not be able to see, I appreciated and hungered even more for every second I could soak in the sight of him.

“How are you feeling?”

His left arm was in a sling, stabilizing his shoulder so he wouldn’t overextend and tear open his wound. But other than that, he looked…well. I struggled to explain it, but the shadows under his eyes were less. The pain haunting his expression had started to fade. Something had changed, but he’d been avoiding me, so it couldn’t have been me.

“Okay,” he rumbled, taking a step closer and then stopping hesitantly.

“Does it still hurt?” I asked, crossing my arms to stop myself from reaching out to touch him. I hated when he looked so solemn and alone like a lost boy who wasn’t sure he deserved a home.

“Less than staying away from you does,”he rasped, taking another small step toward me, like he was unsure just how close I’d let him come.

I sucked in a breath, shocked by the brutal honesty of his answer. “Dare…”

“I want to give you the truth, Athena, and my trust.”Giveme the truth, nottellme. Hope fluttered in my chest, beating away the shadows of doubt that had crept in like cobwebs to the corners of my heart.“If you’ll still take it.”

“Of course,” I said quickly—maybe too quickly for some.

Maybe anger at him would be righteous, but it would also be wrong. To be angry at a man who’d done the wrong thing for the right reasons, who’d hurt me in order to spare me a deeper pain, and who’d punished himself far longer and far worse than I could’ve ever done—well, it would be easy, but it would also be weak.

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