Page 192 of Indulge
“I want one of you to tell me something I don’t know about myself. Something true. Something no one else would dare say to me.”
The air goes still.
Rowan looks at her like he’s memorizing every angle, every breath.
I stay quiet, watching her wait, knowing the silence is part of the game.
She’s testing which of us sees her, the woman, not the player, not the obsession, not the prize.
She steps closer, standing between us again. “Whoever’s braver wins.”
It’s not about dominance anymore.
It’s about truth.
And that’s a hell of a lot harder to survive.
She stands there, knife still in her hand, waiting.
And for once, I don’t try to charm her.
“You want the truth?” I say finally.
Her chin lifts, eyes locked on mine.
“You think control keeps you safe,” I tell her. “That if you’re the one making the rules, no one can ever hurt you again. But it’s not safety you want, it’s permission to be yourself and still be loved. You want someone to look at the chaos in your head and not flinch. You want to burn and still be loved for the smoke it creates.”
Her lips part, and for a second, I think she might cry.
But she doesn’t. She just looks at me like she’s weighing up whether to thank me or slit my throat.
“Not bad, Irish,” she whispers, trying to hide her cracking voice.
Bella turns toward Rowan, still silent, still electric.
He lifts his head, eyes on her, and somehow the whole room changes temperature.
He doesn’t sound smug or competitive, just steady.
“Bella,” he says quietly, “you don’t want to be loved for your fire. You want someone who’ll stand in it with you. Someone who won’t try to save you but burn with you. You don’t want control. You want peace. You just don’t believe you deserve it. You do, Bella. You deserve to find peace. You are worthy of being loved. Let me walk in the fire beside you.”
Her breath catches.
Even I feel it, the truth of it sinking into the floor.
The knife in her hand lowers.
She stares at him like he’s just stripped her bare with words alone. Then she blinks fast, her voice trembling when she finally speaks.
“What if you’re both right?” she whispers. “What if I don’t know which version of me is real? The one who burns everything down, or the one who wants to stop fighting it?”
The sound of it guts me. There’s nothing dramatic about the way she says it. Just small, honest, and completely terrified of her own feelings.
Rowan’s face softens. I feel myself breaking beside him, because that’s the part neither of us can fix. The part that still believes she has to choose who she’s allowed to be. That she can’t be both.
When the truth is, Bella King is capable of owning the world if she just believed in herself more.
“Then you let us help you figure it out,” Rowan says.
