One Night to Risk It All

She raised a shaking hand, a tear sliding down her cheek. “Then it’s nice to meet you, Alexios Christofides.”

He extended his hand and closed his fingers around hers. She was so soft and perfect he wanted to weep. This was the last time he would ever touch her. She would leave him now, and it would be for the best. For her. For their child.

Their child should never know him. Everyone was better off without him in their lives.

“I’m sure you don’t mean that,” he said.

“No,” she said, “actually it really sucks.”

“Shall you tell them all it’s off, or shall I?”

“I will,” she said. “I can handle this myself. You’ve done enough. I’ll send for my things later. We won’t speak again. I assume you don’t want anything to do with the baby?”

His heart screamed. And he ignored it. “No.”

“Great. Great, that’s just...great. If you come near my family again, I will castrate you, do you understand? Because you’ve liberated me, and I will not go quietly. I won’t let you get away with anything. If you show up in our circles, I swear I will have your head on a pike. You thought your revenge on Ajax was bad? Just wait.” She walked past him and pushed the doors open, the sun illuminating her. She was no innocent angel now, she was an avenging angel. Caught on fire with the light of the sun. He had to look away. He closed his eyes and he could still see the impression of her behind his lids, burned there. He had a feeling when he closed his eyes it would always be her that he saw.

The doors closed. And he heard footsteps behind him.

And then something cold hit him in the back of the head. He turned and saw Rachel’s bouquet on the floor behind him, damaged now beyond recognition from hitting him. And then there was Leah, standing there looking like she was ready to castrate him in the real world.

“It’s not over for you,” she said. “Not by a long shot. When Ajax finds out what you did...”

“Let him come. Tell him to bring all the firepower he has. I don’t have anything to lose.” Not now. There was nothing left for him to lose that had any value or meaning. He’d just cut ties with the woman he... The woman who meant more to him than he could ever say. And his child. A child he would never see. Never touch. Never hold.

It’s for the best. It’s for them.

He walked past Leah and went up the stairs, back toward his office. He walked into the room and slammed the door behind him, locking it.

He looked out the window and saw Rachel standing beneath the awful, ugly arch all alone, explaining to all those people that there would be no wedding.

Then the world tilted beneath his feet and he found himself on the floor, on his knees. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t think he would ever be able to get back up because he was crushed under the weight of it all.

He had lost her. And it was only just now that he knew he loved her.

But it didn’t matter. Loving her wasn’t a kindness if it meant binding her to a man who was poison down to his core. Everything he’d done to her since they’d met... He was so bitter and twisted and she deserved more than that.

She deserved everything. She deserved someone who wasn’t broken.

He’d been broken from day one. Somehow...fundamentally in a way that made it so no one could ever love him. A tool for his father, a pawn for his mother.