Right now his left hand was clenched tight over the scar on his right forearm, knuckles white. His nails dug so deep that she feared he was about to slit his own wrist.
She reached out to him, to make him break that shaking grip, but he jerked away.
“Do not—” He stopped, closing his eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath. “Don’t touch me. You would not want to, if you knew what I have done.”
And suddenly, she did. It was an impossible, ridiculous conclusion, but she knew, knew that it was right.
“You knew my mate,” she said.
He had the face of a dead man, gray and frozen. Very slightly, he nodded.
It was like a candle kindling in her mind, throwing new light on piles of shadowy memories. Innocent, perplexing mysteries about him, suddenly illuminated.
Suddenly made monstrous.
“You.” She could barely force the words out past the hurt and betrayal tightening her throat. “You had something to do with his death.”
“I did not kill him.” His hand twisted on his wrist. The old scar stood out stark white against his tanned skin. “But I might as well have done. In any event, I am the reason you don’t have a mate.”
“How?”
He flinched as though the word had been a gunshot. “You know that I was imprisoned, once.”
She did, though he’d never explained how on earth anyone could have shackled the Phoenix. It had taken her over a decade to tease out the barest facts—that he’d been a captive of a secret military program in America, that he’d grown up there, that he’d eventually escaped and sought asylum in England.
“Your mate was there.” His eyes met hers for a fraction of a second. “Do not ask me how I know. There are things I cannot—will not—tell you. But he was there. And when I destroyed that place, I also destroyed your future. Your happiness. And so I destroyed us. What chance we might have had.”
She felt cold inside, cold as ice. She picked up her glass, draining the whiskey in a single swallow. It might as well have been water. The burn didn’t touch the numbness in her chest.
She’d never told anyone the date of her mate’s death, the exact moment when she’d felt that shock of loss. She wouldn’t have been able to stand having people creep around her, pitying, uncertain of the correct protocol. She’d always pretended it was just another day.
But now she realized that Ash had always been there. No matter whether the date fell on a weekday or weekend, he’d made sure she wasn’t alone at that hour.
He’d known.
“All this time,” she said, through the ringing in her ears. “All this time. Would you ever have told me, if I hadn’t forced the issue?”
“No.” His tone was flat, final. There was no hint of apology in it.
Distantly, she wondered if she should be angry. If she should throw him out, ban him from her life, never speak to him again.
But he was still Ash, her friend. Even now, with her soul raw and bleeding, she simply couldn’t believe that he would ever hurt her. That he could hurt her.
“You didn’t tell me for a reason,” she said slowly, things connecting in her head. “And not just because you didn’t want me to hate you.”
He stopped breathing. She’d never seen anyone so utterly motionless.
“Do you hate me?” he said, after a moment.
“I don’t know yet,” she said, honestly. “This is—it’s—damn it, Ash, talk to me! Tell me why you didn’t tell me this before.”
He stared down at his knees. “Because I knew that it would bring you nothing but pain. And I could not bear to hurt you any more than I already had.”
She digested this for a moment. “I have questions.”
He straightened his spine, shoulders setting. He looked like a prisoner facing a firing squad. “As I said, there are things I cannot tell you. But I will answer what I can.?
?