I can’t bring myself to order her around any more tonight. It was hard enough to leave her earlier tonight. I can’t push her away a second time. I open my arms, letting my robe flop open. She crawls onto my bare chest, curling against me like the kitten I’m always calling her.
“I missed you,” she murmurs against my neck. It feels so right, like always, having her here. Body against my body. Nuzzled against me, relaxed and trusting.
“I’m right here,” I breathe out.
“No. You’re far away.” Her small fingers trace my mask, and for a second, I let her. Then I capture her hand, kiss her fingers and engulf them with mine.
She sighs long and loud. So much air for such a little body. I nuzzle her wet hair and study her profile as she stares at the fire. I want to believe her, to believe this, doesn’t she understand?
But a man can only be broken so many times before there’s nothing left to put back together.
“I thought it would be like this,” she says, almost too low for me to hear.
“What?”
“Coming back. I thought we’d be together. And you’d be hurt and punish me, but mostly, it’d be like this.” She nods to the fireplace.
“You and me cuddling in front of a fire?”
The firelight catches the side of her frown as she turns to me. “You and me, together.”
I tuck a half-dry strand of hair behind her ear. “We are together.”
“No we’re not. You’re holding yourself back, Logan.”
My voice hardens, my body tensing. “Well, do you blame me?”
“No,” she says, and looks sad. “I don’t.”
I rub soothing circles onto her back. “We still have this. Just for tonight.” I can pretend for one night.
“Mmm,” she hums, but it’s not quite an agreement. She wants more than one night.
I wish I could give it to her.
“I called my dad today.”
I bite back a grimace. Once upon a time, Dr. Laurel was my mentor. A surrogate father. I would have done anything to please him until I realized how hollow he was inside. Daphne’s still caught in his web of lies.
“And?” I keep my voice bland.
She sighs. “He’s still recovering. I talked to him today and he sounded so weak. I wanted to confront him about everything, challenge him about selling Thornhill but—”
“But?”
“In the end, does it matter? He’s an old man. I’ve lived my whole life the way he wanted, but it was my choice. Especially the past few years, taking on Belladonna. I could’ve told him no.”
My brows arch up. Daphne’s never talked like this before. “Did you tell him that? Today?”
“No.” She half rolls her eyes. “I kept our talk super short. He was slow and out of breath and I...well, I had a butt plug stretching my ass.”
I can’t help my chuckle. “You’re such a good girl.”
She giggles with me. “I so am.”
Being with her feel so good, so natural. And since we’re already pretending…
“Come. I have something to show you.”
She lifts her head. “What?”
“A gift.”
She sighs. “I only want you.”
My cock jumps. Definitely only my cock. Not that other stupid organ in my chest. Not at all. I lift her off my lap, stand and offer my hand.
“An olive branch, then.”
Daphne
“Won’t I need clothes?” I ask as Logan wraps me in a fur carefully. “Shoes?”
“No. I’ll carry you.”
He lifts me as if I’m light as a rose petal. The night air is bracing on my bare face, but the coat covers me past my feet. Frosted grass crunches under Logan’s shoes as he carries me down the hill. The castle looms behind us, darkly beautiful bathed in moonlight. Beside us, the labyrinth is a black, leafy wall.
But that’s not where Logan is taking me. Moonlight glints off a structure ahead. I’m not wearing my contacts or glasses so it takes me a moment to recognize the sheen of glass.
“A greenhouse,” I breathe, delighted.
When he opens the door, warm air embraces me, along with the scent of jasmine and vanilla. Logan sets me down. The moonlight is enough to guide my path through the dark rows. I can pick out the groups of plant by scent. Herbs, orchids, a few vegetables, and finally the last rows dedicated to hybrid after hybrid of—
“Roses.” I swallow a stone that’s suddenly formed in my throat. “These are my mother’s.”
I look to Logan and he doesn’t deny it.
My eyes go back to the roses. “You brought them from Thornhill.” I delicately touch a prickly leaf.
“I wanted them close,” he says. “Easier to care for.”
“My father told me he wouldn’t let my mother’s garden go, that he’d hire someone to keep it up. That the hybrids she was working on would be looked after, kept alive until I had time to return and continue her work.” But he didn’t. He sold Thornhill. It was Logan who cherished these roses and kept them thriving.
“Dad lied to me. About this. About everything.” I turn and walk down the rows. Logan follows, a giant shadow dogging my steps. But I’m grateful for his presence. His warmth.
“Thornhill was promised to me, did you know that? I wanted to live there, convert one of the greenhouses to a lab. Dad convinced me to move into the city. Now I know why.” I let out a hollow laugh.
I stop at the edge of the greenhouse and press my face to the cold glass. I won’t cry. The hurt is so constant, it’s seeped into my bones. It’s part of my blood.
My father has always been like this. Since the day I was born, he made it clear that I mattered less than the stem cells I could give my ailing mother and the accolades I would win in his name. I’ve carried that pain and rejection every day of my life. Take it away and I wouldn’t be Daphne.
Logan
The pain in Daphne’s voice stabs me. A tear beads in her lashes and she blinks it away.
“My father only cared about what I could give him. Never about me. I never mattered to him.”
Finally, she sees the truth about her shit dad. There’s no satisfaction in the fact, though, because I can see how much she’s hurting. I reach out to touch her, but stop with my hand hovering in the air. I don’t want to add to her pain.
Then she turns and sees my hand, smiles, and reaches up to clasp it herself. “I did matter to my mother. But I was her donor, you know. She loved me, she did, but our time together was colored by the disease. I never met anyone who cared about me for me...until I met you.”
She looks up at me and I almost back away from her adoring smile. Her trust hits me like a blow.
“Everything’s changing,” she murmurs. “I’m changing. But I didn’t do it fast enough, did I? As soon as I walked back into Belladonna, I turned into the old Daphne. A pushover, pleasing everyone but herself.”
I start to make a noise and she goes on tiptoe to press two fingers to my lips.
“I’m not making excuses,” she says quickly. “Everything that happened, I allowed it. But please, let me say this. I never got to properly say it when you found me that day at Mom’s grave. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for hurting you.”