The moment I closed the bedroom door, I collapsed onto the bed, burying my face into the pillow. I told myself that I wouldn't cry and I wouldn't let Tristan Donovan's sharp words cut me so deeply, but the tears betrayed me anyway.
He thought I didn't belong here, didn't belong in this place.
That information was very clear. Maybe it's only me who had been foolish enough to think otherwise. I thought Sophia was the bridge that would pull me into their world and let me have a share of their laughter, their happiness, and their warmth.
How wrong was I to think that way. Only now do I understand that without Sophia, I was just Ellie Everett, the little shadows the teacher's daughter from a modest home. A girl who could never measure up to the polished perfection of the Donovan's world.
I thought back to the day when Tristan had shielded me during the raid, how his hand had gripped mine as though he'd never let go. How could the same man now speak as though I was a burden?
"It's not what it looks like."
His voice echoed in my mind like a curse, but so did Sophia's.
"All you're doing is breaking her before she even knows what she is in for."
Did I mean something to him, or am I only fooling myself?
-
I saw her back as she slipped down the hall with her shoulders drawn tight, and her head bowed low. Even from a distance, I could feel her pain, and I knew with a sinking gut that she'd heard enough of the conversation.
"Damn it," I muttered under my breath, leaning against the doorframe of the study. My chest ached, the weight of my choices pressing down like lead.
Charlie gave me a knowing look before he left me alone in this silence. He didn't have to say anything but his eyes had already said enough.
"This is about Ellie."
He was damn right. Everything at this point is about her, and that was where the problem lies.
I know she deserved the light, the safety, and the laughter of the world, which is the whole opposite of my world.
She doesn't need the shadows that clung to me, not the business that had been passed down to me or even tainted with all the secret dealings and danger.
If she stayed too close to me, I believe those shadows would one day swallow her whole, which something I wouldn't allow to happen to her.
That was why I'd kept my words sharp, and I'd let Sophia accuse me without even defending myself, because if I admitted the truth, that what I have always wanted is Ellie Everett, I would never be able to let her go anymore.
But when I saw her retreating figure and the tears I knew she tried to hide, it nearly broke me.
For the first time, I'm wondering if I am hurting her more than the hurt she felt from the world I was trying to protect her from.
Later that night, Ellie sat by her window, staring out at the quiet gardens while Tristan stood at his own, across the hall, his silhouette faint against the glass.
Neither of them moved, or neither of them spoke.
But both of them felt the invisible thread pulling, tightening, refusing to break.