Folding my arms around her, I pull her against my chest. “Try. Try to give us a chance. I’m not asking for your love and devotion.” Not yet. I can be patient. “All I’m asking is for your honesty.”
She pushes away, uncertainty filtering into her gaze. “You’re asking for a lot.”
“Not without making the same effort.”
She spins away, trying to escape, but I’m not letting her run this time. Not from this.
Catching her wrist, I pull her back to me. “The truth, Violet. For once in your life, tell the truth.”
She twists her arm, fruitlessly trying to free herself. “You know the truth.”
I don’t let go. “Tell me.”
“Why?” she exclaims. “What difference does it make?”
“All the difference,” I grit out. “I want to hear you say it.”
“You want a confession?” She glares at me. “If that’s what it will take, here’s your confession. Elliot gave me a USB key with a pre-recording to override the security cameras. He wrote the instructions down on a piece of paper. I pretended to trip over the electric cord to shut down your computer so that I could steal your password by looking over your shoulder when you restarted it. I went back to the office when everyone was gone and did everything exactly as Elliot instructed.”
Her chest deflates as if the admission has taken her very breath. “I even deleted a few lines of the code before saving it to the USB key Elliot had given me, hoping the program wouldn’t work, but Elliot figured it out.” She gives me a beseeching look. “I didn’t know what he was going to do with it. I thought he wanted to copy it and create something similar. I had no idea he was going to downright claim it as his own.” Yanking her arm from my grasp, she says, “And that’s the honest truth. Believe it, or don’t.”
The truth does hurt. How can it not? Honesty isn’t exempt from pain. Mostly, it goes hand in hand with pain. But it also makes me breathe easier. She didn’t steal my work and gave it to her stepbrother to evade her fate. She did it to save her mother. So much ugliness could’ve been avoided if she’d only come to me and told me what was going on. But how could she? How could she approach a man she didn’t want to marry, a man she didn’t know and therefore couldn’t trust?
It’s as if a pile of sludge has been washed away. The weight on my chest lifts as the road that separates us starts to look a little clearer. She still doesn’t want to be trapped in this marriage, but I’ll give her plenty of reasons to want to stay.
“I believe you,” I say.
She gives a start, as if she expected otherwise. As if she expected the worst. Tears glisten in her eyes, making them shine like violet gemstones. “You do?”
“Yes.”
A single tear slips free and rolls over her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice breaking on the last word.
I shut my eyes, only for a moment. Because I want to look at her face.
Because finally.
The words that will heal us.
Cupping her cheek, I wipe away the tear. “I forgive you.”
Her tears fall faster. “How can you ever forgive me for what I did?”
I smile softly. “I already forgave you, even before your mother told me about the photos and I figured out the rest.”
She breaks down with big, ugly sobs. It strikes me then how hard it must’ve been for her to carry such a heavy burden on her own. Elliot not only wronged me. He wronged Violet too. I wrap my arms around her and hold her close, soothing the woman I love, even if my love isn’t pure or perfect. Pure love sprouts from good intentions. My love is born from an obsession. It’s dark and tainted and full of wrongs, but Violet means everything to me. No one harms her and gets away with it.
When she pulls away after a long time, my T-shirt is soaked with her tears. Tears seem fitting. Sunny smiles are for innocent people. We’re both damaged and dirty with the stains of our sins, but that’s why we’re so perfect for each other.
“Why?” she asks, wiping her eyes. “How could you forgive me even before you knew the truth?”
Holding up my hand, I show her the gold band on my ring finger. “Because we’re in this for life.” I frame her beautiful, tear-ridden face between my palms. “That’s why I ask only one thing, that you never lie to me again.” I don’t hold back, because that’s who I am. Tainted. Twisted. Because that’s who she is too. “If you ever hide the truth from me again, it won’t end well, my darling.”