Page 52 of Ruined Vows

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She doesn’t move. Neither do I. We’ve bared our souls, and we’ve never trusted anyone enough to do that before today.

We stay in that silence, hovering in something neither of us knows how to navigate.

Then, the spell is broken, and she opens the cage, and I meet Meatball. He’s a cute pup. I know she wants to take him home. I saw it in her eyes.

He needs a home. But before we could talk more, my phone buzzed.

Once.

Then again.

A third time. Priority alert.

I glance down at the screen and immediately feel the shift in my chest.

Business. Family. Blood.

Duty.

I clench my jaw. Notnow.

Bianca watches me, her soft eyes growing wide with curiosity. She knows. She alwaysknows.

I step back. And all of a sudden, being alone with her is too quiet.

“Something wrong?” she asks.

“Something I need to handle.”

She nods once. Doesn’t ask. Doesn’t pry.

She’s used to men walking out—but this time, I want her to know it’s notawayfrom her.

I slip the phone into my pocket, then lean in, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek.

“Don’t look at anyone else while I’m gone,” I murmur.

She smirks, but it’s not smug. It’s softer, and it runs deeper than words.

“You’ll text me?” she says, as if it’s no big deal.

But it is. It tells me she likes to hear from me. It means I’m making progress.

I nod. “I’ll text later, Princess.”

Then I walk away. I hate to leave. I love spending time with her. I’ve never been so at ease around a woman. She completes me. She fills holes in me that I never knew I needed to fill.

And every step I take feels like I’m leaving the most important thing in my life. And perhaps I am. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll have to work harder to regain the progress we’ve made tonight.

But I don’t care how long it takes to win her—the part of her that is buried under the hurt and the pain that has her shielding herself from love.

And in the process, I hope we find it in each other. And oddly, I might find redemption.

13

BIANCA

AMONG THE BROKEN, WE BELONG

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