She bit her lip and shook her head. “You’re a good man, Dante. I don’t know why you don’t know it. Why you don’t believe it. Look what you’ve done for me. For Ana. You keep almost every bit of yourself locked up tight and you make me work to reach it, but when I do, that’s when I know.”
“When you know what?” he asked, his lungs frozen, incapable of drawing breath.
“When I know that I love you. And not just that, but why. Because you are so strong. And so broken. And yet, in spite of everything you’ve been through, you’ve grown up to be a good man. A man who puts the needs of others before himself. A man who is capable of great love, if only he would let himself feel it.”
He shook his head. “That’s not me, Paige. I’m sorry you’re confused about that.”
“You love me,” she said.
Something inside of him broke completely, opening up a flood of emotion, of need so strong he wasn’t sure he could withstand the onslaught. But he stood still, composing his face into a mask, doing what he had to do.
“No.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”
“Then you have fooled yourself.”
A tear spilled down her cheek, then another, each track of moisture a stab in his chest, a drop of his own blood shed inside, bleeding him dry. She shook her head. “No, Dante. Stop now. How long will you punish yourself for sins your father committed?”
“Love only means one thing to me, Paige. It is rage, and loss and grief so deep it consumes everything in its path. It puts you on your knees, steals your breath with the pain that it causes.”
“That isn’t love, Dante. That’s evil. It was evil that tore love from you, that made your father do what he did. There was no love in it.”
“Then it’s the potential for evil I see in myself. Thank you for making it clear.”
“You say you’re half of your father like that makes everything certain. Like you aren’t half of your mother. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget she gave you life, and that she would want you to live it fully. And don’t forget what Don and Mary gave you, not through genetics, but what they taught you. You’re bigger than one man, bigger than one event.”
“And you speak like you have anything more than frivolous thoughts in your head,” he growled, hating the insult, hating the words even as they left his lips. He was a coward. And in that moment, he knew it. Knew he was using anger to make her leave so he wouldn’t have to listen to her anymore.
Because she was too close to tearing the veil away. To exposing him, not just to her, but to himself, for the first time.
“Out,” he said. “Get out.”
She stood for a moment, her blue eyes fixed on his, windows into her soul. Her pain, her sadness, worst of all, her love. For him. Love he didn’t deserve. Couldn’t accept.
“Get out, Paige. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you.” The last words were torn from him, taking a piece of his soul with them. A lie he had to tell. A lie he hated.
She bit her bottom lip and nodded, then turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. He didn’t want to follow her. He didn’t want to watch her walk out of the house, drive away. Out of his life. He would deserve it. He should want it.
But he didn’t. He so desperately didn’t. He wanted to cling to her words. To tell her that she was right. To will himself to believe it no matter what. So he could have her. So he could have Ana.
He looked around his desk, it was well-ordered. So perfect. And for the first time, he realized that everything around him was a lie. He was broken. Disheveled. Destroyed. And no amount of cleaning his surroundings would fix it.
He put his hand on his desk, on top of a mug that was placed at a right angle, in the exact spot it needed to be for him to reach it with ease when he was seated. He picked it up by the handle and looked at it, felt the weight of it in his hand.
And he looked back down at the surface of his desk. A place for everything, everything in its place. And he hated it.
He growled and hurled the mug at the wall, splintering it into a hundred pieces. He braced himself on the desk, then he pushed everything to the floor.