CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER TWELVE

D ANTE HADN ’ T SLEPT .

For six weeks, he’d searched for it. The rush. Adrenaline. The high.

He’d searched for the man he was. Jumped out of planes. Climbed mountains. He’d sought the monks in the hills. He’d meditated. He’d prayed. To all the gods. Old and new. None had answered. Still, he could not find it. He was lost to himself. Displaced. Alone on a ledge. Cold. And he didn’t want to be cold. He wanted to be warm. But nothing warmed him.

Dante scrubbed his hands over his face. His beard was full, and his hair was too long. He closed his eyes. Raked his fingers through his hair and pulled at the roots.

Why wouldn’t it just die?

Dante opened his eyes and stared at the papers in front of him. At the empty signature boxes.

The divorce papers were ready.

By every rule in the playbook, they should already be divorced. Japan never should have happened. But he’d allowed it to happen. Instigated it, even. Bent every rule to seduce her. To make her want to stay.

And she’d wanted to stay.

He was the one who had sent her away this time.

He’d projected every single childhood trauma onto her shoulders when the weight was not hers to bear. It was his .

Because he did have trauma, didn’t he? She’d pulled it from the places he’d hidden it. Exposed it. The cruelties that raised boys and broke men.

And he was broken. A shell of the man he knew he once was. Because he had hurt her on purpose. And he could not forgive himself for that. Even though it was the right thing to do. He’d broken his promise to keep her safe. To protect her. He could not protect her from him. From his fear of attachment. Of belonging to another and watching them leave.

And so he had left first.

Left her behind.

Abandoned her.

But he did not feel powerful.

He was not himself. The rules, the playbook, were obsolete, because none of it was working for him.

Had they ever worked? How had they served him? He’d lived an exhilarating life. But it had been a lonely life.

Until her.

And she’d let him into her garden. He’d seduced her, lulled her into the falsity that she was safe with him inside. He’d assured her it was safe. He would not crush the blooms. He would not crush her.

But he was a snake, and he had bitten her. A venomous bite. And no, their marriage was dead. Because he couldn’t accept that she had changed him. That he was—

In love?

She hadn’t contested the agreed settlement. She had not sought more than he’d already promised. She had not even demanded a divorce.

She was not his mother.

She’d only wanted to love him.

To be loved in return.

He was a fool. A changed fool. Because what did he know of love? Only what she’d told him. Shown him. That she was his soulmate.

How could he let her in with these feelings? Big and scary, they haunted him. Her confession. Her love.

His stomach clenched.

All that was required was two signatures. And then it would be over. She would be gone. Forever.

He should not be hesitating. He should not be letting doubt in where it did not belong. She did not belong to him. He could not keep her safe. He could not meet her needs. He did not know this love. He did not know himself.

After today, after he signed the papers, he’d be able to breathe. They would finally be at an end. Divorced. He’d watch her sign the papers too, and only then would he be free of her. Only then would what it was that they shared die. And he would find himself again.

You’ll be alone.

As he always had been.

The plane landed without ceremony. Dante collected the papers and carried them in his too-tight grip. He descended the stairs and got into the waiting car.

Ten minutes and she would sign.

Emma was still afraid.

The first time she’d left Dante, she’d gone back to what she knew. Her life before him. Back to the estate, back to surviving, to start again. She’d worked any and every job the agency had offered her. She’d worked endlessly until exhaustion claimed all her senses. And she didn’t have to think or feel . She didn’t have to remember what she’d left behind. Or what was coming. Any second now.

The end.

Divorce.

In the back of her mind, in the fog of exhaustion, she’d known it would arrive.

Dante had said he hadn’t wanted to stay in this house without her, and she understood it now, even more than she had on the plane.

It was agony. To be here. To see what she hadn’t been able to see the night he’d brought her back from the hospital. The memories.

Dante lingered in every room. His scent followed her, infiltrated her every waking thought, and in sleep, he was there. In her dreams.

For six weeks, she’d wanted to lie on the floor and cry. Break things. And cry again.

She’d ruined everything because she’d uttered the one word she shouldn’t have. Confessed to having that one feeling. A feeling she knew was too big for him. Too big for her too, because it consumed her. Even in Dante’s absence, there was no escape from it. The yearning for it, for him. For what she’d had with him in Japan. Passion. Closeness. Intimacy.

She knew it was love now, even more so than she had known it the night she’d confessed it to him. And she would confess it again.

But Dante had never lied to her. Never manipulated her like her father had manipulated her mother. Dante had always told the truth. However blunt. However much she didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t lie. He did not break his promises.

He was never coming back.

But still she waited, still she stayed in this house, still she lived with the ghost of the man she loved, because she couldn’t bear not to. Because a part of her still hoped even when she knew she shouldn’t.

It terrified her, the depth of her feelings for him. And every day her love grew. It would not diminish. Every day it grew in certainty. In confidence. In strength. And that only made it worse. The pain. The knowing she had rushed him. She hadn’t treated him as softly as he had treated her. She hadn’t eased him in. She’d thrown her love at him and he hadn’t known what to do with it, how to embrace this feeling he couldn’t see. Didn’t trust.

And now he didn’t trust her.

But she trusted him . Trusted this love, however new, however fragile, to bring him back to her.

So still she was here. Still she waited. But the divorce papers hadn’t arrived.

So she hoped he would find his way back to this place that was theirs. That was safe. She would not abandon it again. She would not leave it empty for him to find. She would not leave him to be alone.

So still she waited.

Still she loved.

There was a knock on the door.

She’d sent all the staff home; there was no one to answer it but her. So, barefoot, she ran down the stairs. Padded across the marble reception and silk rugs. To the door. She tugged it open—

Her mouth fell open. Never had she seen his hair so long, his beard so full. Never had he come to her in a T-shirt creased from travel. Jeans loose at the hips from too much wear. She searched his face. Noted the bruises under his bloodshot eyes.

The bud of hope inside her bloomed. She wanted to reach for him. Tell him it would be okay. He was safe here with her. But she was afraid. Afraid he wasn’t here to stay.

And then she eyed the papers scrunched tightly in his hand. The bulge of his naked forearm...

He’d come to claim his divorce.

Not their marriage.

Not her.

And she felt it.

The death of hope.