“I don’t deserve you, Anya. A man like me—”

I cupped his cheek. “I forgive you.”

“I’m not sure you can.” He squeezed his eyes closed at the weight of those words. The impossible shifting of us toward something more. It would be a cruel future, one where we both knew what his intentions had been for me. We wouldn’t survive it. Our past was too complicated. Too ruined. My body yearned for all that had gone before to be forgotten for these few hours ahead of us.

Tell him.

Tell him you’re not a Glassman.

He lifted me up in his arms and carried me down the hallway toward the bed. Laying me on top of the duvet and helping me climb beneath it.

He pulled on one of the bathrobes to cover his nakedness. “Only you and I would ever understand where we’ve come from.” He brought the duvet up and dragged it over me. “That’s something we can hold on to.”

“I know.” It didn’t make sense that he was tucking me into bed.

Not after all that sensual tension, not after my body was so alight with passion, I thought I might combust.

He gave a look of understanding. “After all you’ve been through tonight, us, being more at this moment, wouldn’t be right.”

I went to protest, but he held a fingertip to my mouth. “I promise to tell you everything tomorrow.”

“I can’t sleep.”

He gave a nod of understanding and lay down beside me, with him above the duvet and me beneath it; I felt the warmth of his body spooning behind me.

“Let’s catch our breath, Anya. I just want to savor this, okay? Let me have this one last night with you.”

I glanced over my shoulder in protest.

“After I tell you what you want to know, this may never happen again.”

With his words ruminating in the depths of my consciousness, I fought and lost the will to stay awake. Falling into sleep, begging my heart to be brave enough to hear the truth of what it would take for us to be more.

Cassius

We moved along in the small boat amongst the towering brilliance of nature’s cathedral, with its impressively tall cypress and tupelo trees rising all around us. Steering the small motorboat farther into the heart of Lake Martin, we took in the beauty of the swamp.

We’d spent the day at opposite sides of the property. With Anya in the library, needing solace from the scars from attending Mardi Gras, and me, staying in my office. Throwing myself into work. Though honestly, I was really trying to come to terms that this may be our last evening together.

Because I knew I was going to have to bring her here.

The place it all began. Where my story started. The reason I’d spent a lifetime trying to hold my very existence together.

We glided by hefty oaks adorned by Spanish moss draping over their sprawling branches, low enough to kiss the murky, brackish, untamed waters below.

“What are we doing out here?” Anya shook me from my musing.

“I wanted you to see this.”

She’d sensed my melancholy. Offering a kind touch to bring me back to the present, back to her.

I needed to do this.

Needed her to hear it from me. The truth that would leave a scorched earth behind us because there was no other way than to walk through the ashes of the truth. She’d never look at me the same.

I would miss this short-lived affection between us. Those moments that shimmied and shined to hint that we could have been more.

Only here, in the dimness of the marshland, could this be done. Where no one could overhear. I needed solitude. A place where no one else could judge me, other than her.

A pelican swooped over the boat, and we watched it climb higher, sweeping up and out of the towering trees flying southward.

Despite the heat, my body chilled as the memories of this place swirled. The open space was closing in around us.

A cold sweat snaked down my spine as I replayed the moments that had unfolded here. This marsh not that far away from my home. The events that changed my world.

The consequences of that day playing out with a heady mixture of cruelty and greed.

Looking around us now, it was hard to remember the young man I’d been. Impossible to recall those feelings of innocence. Of trust. A part of me wanting to yell out into the dusk to reach the younger version of me.

Run!

Escape into the marshland. Don’t listen to him—to Glassman. Don’t carry his threat back to my family. Don’t let him have that power over you.

A blue heron waded amongst the abundance of greenery. Beneath the water, unseen creatures lurked. The aliveness a symphony of song. Continuing through, I took pleasure in pointing out egrets and pelicans. Suppressing a lazy smile when Anya flinched—she’d seen the alligator not that far away, bathing on a leafy bank.

Tags: Ava Harrison Romance
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