Page 98 of Secrets (The Sins Trilogy 2)
She’s withdrawing emotionally and mentally. I feel the loss as keenly as a rasp along my skin. If I don’t pull her back, she’s going to drift away, lost forever. The notion is terrifying, a bleak, lonely future unfurling in my mind like a tattered tapestry. I have to anchor her to me, make sure she never leaves…never doubts my heart.
I slide down the bed and crouch in front of her. I squeeze her hands, willing her to really listen to me. “I love you, Iris.” I look into her eyes, now dim and dull as unpolished silver. “I love you so much that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” I pull the box from my pocket and flip the lid open.
The pearl glows like stardust. The diamonds and rubies sparkle, reflecting the soft light in the room.
Iris stares at the ring mutely. Then tears start to flow.
“What if I’m not the person you think I am?”
It breaks my heart. I know better than she knows about herself. And I’m not the man she thinks I am. “I know exactly who you are—the only woman I’ll ever love.”
Say yes.Her eyes are sad, but as long as she says yes, I can fix the rest. I know I can make her happy. Just this morning, she was smiling sleepily, her hair spread on our bed, her cheeks flushed from lovemaking. I’m still the same man from those hours.
Pain is etched in every line of her lovely visage. She squeezes her eyes shut and puts her hands over her face.
She isn’t saying yes. She won’t. I have to change her mind somehow, but I don’t know how.
She doesn’t want your love. She doesn’t want your money.
She thinks she’s a bad person because she can’t remember something that happened long time ago. And I’ve painted myself into a corner where I can’t tell her everything without losing her. In all my dealings, professional and otherwise, I could get what I wanted by bluffing or cajoling or being well informed. But Iris isn’t going to be won that way.
“Don’t let the past define your future. Our future.” My voice is taut and hoarse. “Only your choices now have the power to do that.”
Her shoulders shake. I know I’ve failed to penetrate that fortress of pain to reach her. All that I have to offer isn’t enough, and the weight of futility and helplessness presses upon me until I can’t stand. Maybe her heart knows, even without the memories, that I’m flawed. A sister killer. A disowned son. A cold, callous bastard.
I’m tempted to take a page from Audrey’s book and stage a fake suicide. Iris would then…
I stop myself. What the hell is wrong with me to even consider that? What would that prove, except how undeserving I am? It’d only earn Iris’s contempt, and rightly so.
My heart slowly shrivels until I’m frozen inside. I stay at her feet until the sun disappears under the horizon.
