Page 85 of Bought

It should be. The thought of it should have meant nothing to me at all. Easy come, easy go. But there it was again, that pain at the thought of letting her go, letting her disappear into the city and out of the country. Out of my life. Not mine any longer…

You can’t keep her. This is better for her in the long run.

I wasn’t done with her, but no, I couldn’t keep her. I couldn’t force her to stay with me knowing she would always want more. Knowing that there was one thing my sub needed above all else and that I couldn’t give it to her. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And I couldn’t do it.

I should have lied to her then, but her honesty deserved better than that. “No,” I said. “It won’t be easy at all. But it’s necessary.”

“Fuck necessary.” She took a step closer, looking up at me. Pale skin, silvery hair, the prettiest gray eyes. The most beautiful woman. “Do you want me? Will it hurt to give me up?”

She was so hurt and so angry, and she wasn’t hiding it. She was showing me everything she felt, and the Dom in me wanted to claim those emotions. Take them away and make them mine.

But she loved me. She loved me and I couldn’t do anything with that.

I took a breath, my icy control beginning to slip at the pain in her eyes and her physical closeness. Her warmth and sweet scent. I didn’t want her getting near me, testing my control, testing my determination, and for the first time since I’d met her, I was the one who took a step back. I was the one giving ground.

“My feelings have nothing to do with this,” I said coldly. “I’m your Dom. I have to do the right thing for you.”

“Bullshit.” She took another step, getting into my personal space, flooding the air around me with her beauty. “You don’t want to give me up, do you?”

I couldn’t take another step back, I couldn’t give more ground, but I also couldn’t bear her getting so close, so I reached out, taking her upper arms and gripping them tight to hold her in place. “No, I don’t,” I said fiercely. “I want to tie you to my bed and keep you there. But I will never be able to give you the things you need, Zara. Juliana’s death shattered me, and I will never be whole, do you understand? I can’t love you back and I never will. Never. Which means the best thing for both of us is to end this while we can.”

Her eyes glittered with tears and pain and fury. She made no effort to get free. “The best thing for you, you mean. Don’t make it my fault, Tennyson. Don’t make all of this about doing what’s right for me, not when it’s about you. You and your fear.”

I let her go abruptly. “Fear? What the hell would I be afraid of?”

“You’re afraid of letting anyone get close to you. Isabel. Caleb. Atlas… You hold everyone at a distance and it’s not because you need to protect them, it’s all about protecting yourself.”

A shock passed through me, hot and electric. “What? No, that’s not what this is—”

“It is!” She stared up at me, all fire and passion. All fury. “You think you’re broken, but that’s just a fucking excuse. An excuse not to want anything, not to try again. An excuse not to live. I know you’ve been hurt and hurt badly, and fuck, same. But you know what you do? You get up. You try again. You let yourself want more because it’s better to fight than fucking giving up and dying!”

Each word was a shock, a bolt delivered straight to my heart.

She’s right.

No. No, she wasn’t.

“You think I didn’t try after Juliana died?” I demanded, suddenly as furious as she was. “You think I gave up? Ask Sir George Wyndham if I gave up. Ask Atlas. Ask Isabel. I fought for them and I—”

“But you didn’t fight for you, Tennyson!” she shouted. “What do you want? Do you think you died with her? Is that what this is? Because telling me you can’t love is the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Everything you do is for love, Tennyson Fox. Everything! You’re the most caring, protective, decent man I’ve ever known, and if that makes you broken then I hate to think what that makes me.”

I stared at her, the force of her fury touching something deep inside me. Because she wasn’t wrong. I had done all those things for love. Yet they were also why I couldn’t love her, no matter how much she wanted me to, and it was clear she did want me too.

“Yes,” I said, reaching for the ice that never failed me, the cold that kept the pain at bay. “You’re right. Everything I did was for love. I killed a man. I destroyed my relationship with my daughter, and I nearly ruined the friendship I had with two men who are brothers to me.” I took a step towards her, letting her see the devil in me, the demon that lived inside me. “And what do you think I’ll do for you? What lengths would I go to? I would bring down this city and everyone in it, and not waste a second’s regret, and that’s why you have to go. Because I can never do any of those things again. I won’t.”

She didn’t back away, she didn’t even look afraid. She stared back at the demon in me, the demon I was, her eyes full of tears. “Coward,” she spat. “You’re just a fucking coward.”

Then she turned on her heel and walked out on me.

33

Zara

I was shaking with rage and pain as I walked away. Shaking with fury at his absolute refusal to see what I saw in him, at his commitment to being the bad guy when it was obvious, he was the opposite.

It was fear and I think he knew that himself, yet even pointing that out to him hadn’t been enough to make him change his mind.

I wasn’t enough.