Eva’s ears crackled, then fuzzed out, as though she was getting bad reception on a radio station. Her father’s lips were still moving, but she could only make out a few words, sprinkled throughout waves of oppressive silence.
“Four weeks.”
That she heard, loud and clear. Her six-month window had been drastically reduced.
The room pitched violently to the side. Except nothing was out of order, everything on her father’s desk was still laid out precisely, and her feet were still solidly planted on the whitewashed stone floor. Everything was as it should be. Everything around her. Everything in her screamed like a wounded animal.
Marrying Bastian had always seemed wrong. The idea of marrying him now … after falling for Mak, after giving all of herself, body, heart and soul to him—it was repulsive.
“I need to go,” she said, her own voice as fuzzy and distant as her father’s.
She stumbled out of the office and past Mak, down the long, winding corridor and out the glass parlor doors into the garden. Air, maybe the air would help. She breathed in deeply, waiting for the salt and brine to penetrate the horrible fog that had descended.
It did. And when it did it left the cold sting of reality in its place. Harsh, painful, bright, like the white sunlight that pounded down on the grass. She kept walking, stumbled down the path and into the alcove shielded by grapevines.
She dropped to her knees and simply stayed. She waited, for tears, for something. There was nothing. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, willing a sound of pain to come out, to relieve some of the pressure inside of her.
But it wouldn’t come. She was frozen, trapped in herself. All she could manage to do was gulp in air in halting gasps, a feeling of panic gripping her, holding her down.
A hand on her shoulder, warm and comforting, drew her back from the abyss. “What happened?”
She tried to swallow more air, but couldn’t find any way to speak.
Mak knelt down with her, his hand sliding over her back, around her shoulders, drawing her to him. She rested her head on his chest and breathed in deeply. She memorized his smell, the way his heart sounded beneath her ear, the way he breathed. Why had she thought she could just say goodbye? That it could end? How had she not realized just what the separation would mean? How badly it would hurt?
Mak pulled her up onto his lap, settling in his black suit in the dust, uncaring for the expensive fabric.
She clung to him. She hadn’t wanted support earlier. Hadn’t wanted to do anything beyond standing on her own feet. But right now, she needed to be held up. Just for now. And she was glad she had him.
She didn’t know what she would do when Mak wasn’t there to keep her from falling.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ONLY madness could come from this. From touching her. He had sworn he would let it go. Let her go. That those last moments in the chalet would be his last moments of insanity.
Because she needed him. Because she had no one else. Because he needed to.
Touching her like this, without touching her the way he truly desired, was a new kind of torture. It should be old and familiar now, the denial of his body’s needs. But this wasn’t the same. This was about closeness. About her skin against his.
He wouldn’t. He would just hold her.
He moved his hands over her back, frustrated at the feel of silk beneath his fingers, instead of soft, bare skin.
He held her like that for a long time. Then she stiffened, pulling away from him and moving into a standing position.
“There’s no use crying about it,” she said, wiping her cheeks. “It’s done.”
“It’s not done yet,” he said.
“It’s as good as done.” She looked at him, the depth of emotion in her eyes stabbing him straight in the heart. “What other option do I have?”
His chest seized tight. “Eva … I can’t …”
“I’m not asking you to rescue me, Mak. I’m not locked in a tower. Look … doors everywhere, I could walk out if I liked. But I don’t know why I would. For … fun? You’ve said it many times, happiness is transient but doing something for the right reasons, something rooted in honor, that means something, doesn’t it?”