Page 86 of The Pakhan's Forced Bride
“Can we speak?” I ask, getting straight to the point.
“Sit,” he says, folding the paper and setting it aside.
“You’ve been very generous with your help. I am endlessly grateful and in your debt with regards to that, but I need to ask you for something else,” I say, dropping all defenses, laying my ego bare.
Benedikt leans back, his brows raised, and his arms folded over his chest. He waits for me to continue.
“First, I need to tell you I kidnapped Belle. I came to Vegas with revenge on my mind, and I kidnapped her to get to you. I had no intention of hurting her, never in my life, but I did want to drive you crazy. The problem is that I fell in love with her. That’s why I never contacted you like I had intended to. I couldn’t face the thought of letting her go. She is everything tome, Benedikt. That girl has my entire heart. I don’t know how I can possibly be without her.”
Benedikt’s eyes are locked onto me.
I carry on, “You know I’m full of shit, Benedikt. My ego is sometimes too big for my own good.”
“Sometimes?” he mocks me.
I chuckle. “Most of the time. But please understand that Belle has changed me. When would I ever come to you like this, literally begging you to let me be with her? I will give you anything. You ask me for anything, and it’s yours, Benedikt.”
“Ardalion, it’s not that simple,” Benedikt sighs.
“It is. We make a deal. You tell me what you want, and in exchange, you let me be with her. It really is that simple,” I say, more determined than ever to make him understand how much she means to me.
Chapter 25 - Belle
In the kitchen, I stand staring at the snack platter I’ve just made for him. I was excited to do something sweet for him, but now I’m fighting tears that are about to spill from my eyes. My vision has gone blurry, and I keep swallowing hard, trying to push them away.
I’ve been dreading the arrival of this exact moment.
He’s healed.He’s ready to leave, and he probably can’t wait to get out of here. I can’t see any reason why he’d want to stay in my brother’s house a second longer.
But where does that leave me? I’ve spent every day for the past six weeks lost in him.All over again, I became so easily lost in him. Having him this close to me is all I wanted, and now he’s leaving again.
It’s going to shatter me worse than before.
I don’t think I’ll be able to recover from this.
The thing that has me in tears right now isn’tjustthe fact that he will probably leave soon, maybe even tonight—it’s the fact that over the past six weeks, he hasn’t said a single word to me aboutus,and I don’t know who I am to him. He hasn’t even hinted at it.
We’ve been talking for hours, day after day. We laugh and we joke, and we share our thoughts and ideas about pretty much everything else there is to discuss—but he hasn’t said anything about how he feels towards me or about the possibility of a relationship between us.
I don’t understand.
It seems like we’re so close, but maybe I’m reading it all wrong.
Does he still think I betrayed him? Is he just being polite and biding his time while he’s trapped in my brother’s home? Does he feel like a prisoner here, waiting until he can escape? Playing it safe?
Maybe all this time, he was just desperate for the moment when he got to leave, and being polite to me was a way to make his stay here easier.
Maybe, just maybe, he’s trying to make me fall in love with him again through his sweetness, only so he can push me away in the end as revenge for what he thinks I did to him?
All of these worries—I’ve been able to keep them at bay because he wasn’t leaving yet, and I wasn’t ready to face them. But now he is. Now I have to accept the reality of my situation.
The person whom I have always gone to for advice is my brother. He thinks with a level head. He tells me things as they are, not as I wish for them to be. He’s not as emotionally invested, and he isn’t angry anymore.
I need to talk to him before I face Ardalion again.
Leaving the platter on the kitchen counter, I hurry upstairs to where my brother is relaxing in the sunroom.
Even if he doesn’t tell me what I want to hear, I’d rather know the truth.
