Page 146 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
She swallowed. “I always have in the past.”
“That isn’t an answer, Adeline!”
She disentangled herself from him and rose from the floor. “It’s the only answer I know how to give,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to be brave.”
“But I do,” she said. “I do, because who will look after me if I’m not?”
Dimitri reached for her again. “I will.”
“But you can’t,” she said, voice like sandpaper. “Don’t you see that, now? Didn’t yesterday show you anything? You can’t be myanything.”
Dimitri buckled. “My father will leave eventually.”
Adeline shook her head. “It will be someone else, if not him. There will always be someone else,somethingelse, telling us we can’t be together.”
“No one has to know—”
“These things don’t stay secret, Dimitri! I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hiding… not from others, and not from myself.”
“Are you… are you saying you want to go?”
Adeline swallowed, unable to look at him, the tremble in his voice ringing in her ears. “I’m saying we need to think about it.”
“But, you said—”
“I know what I said!” she said. “But that was before...”
“Before?”
“Before we did the things we shouldn’t have done! We can’t go back to before, you know that. And we can’t both continue like this—”
“What other choice do we have?”
Adeline stilled. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think whatever we do will hurt. We just need to decide how much, and when… like ripping off a bandage.”
She turned to leave, unable to stomach the weight of his gaze, but his hand reached out and snatched her wrist.
“You say ‘we’ need to decide, but I don’t have any say in this, do I? It’s your choice, because mine will always be to have whatever part of yourself you can offer. I’ll survive on the scraps of you, if I have to, because you’re the only person I can stomach. The only person I’ll ever want to be with.”
He took a step towards her, lowering his head against the back of her neck, almost kissing it, not quite.
“Please, Adeline,” he begged. “I’ve never had a choice. My whole life, nothing that has happened to me has ever been my choice. Not even the way I feel about you.”
Adeline swallowed hoarsely.
“But I choose you, anyway. I will always choose you. Please, Adeline…stay.Stay with me.”
His lips touched her neck, his arms started to slide around her waist, and she shot forward in a heartbeat, knowing that one more second would be all it took before her resolve crumbled from her and she melted irreversibly into his arms.
I’m sorry, Dimitri, I’m sorry.
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Final Guest
A week later, almost all the guests had departed, and the manor was close to quiet once more.
Adeline had not looked Dimitri in the eyes since that moment, when he had begged her to stay, and she’d fled from him like she had his father.
