Page 78 of Devotion
“I’m not going to apologize for listening to someone who’s trying to make things right.”
He stood, crossed the room, and stopped close enough that I had to tilt my chin up to hold his gaze. The height difference between us felt overwhelming, his six-foot-four pressing down on my five-foot-six, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that made the storm outside feel casual.
“You don’t understand what Dominic is.” His frustration was breaking through.
“Maybe not. But I understand what he’s trying to do. And shutting it down without hearing it is your choice, but it shouldn’t be mine.”
“He got to you.” He said it like a verdict. “He made himself sympathetic and now you’ve taken his side.”
“I’m not on hisside.”
“Then why were you there?” His voice was low and vibrating, a sound compressed from fury and betrayal. “Why did you go behind my back? Why did you decline my call? Why did you get in his car?”
“Because he’s your brother and he’s—” I stopped myself. Cancer. The word was right there, sitting on my tongue. But that wasn’t my secret to tell. Dominic had trusted me with information he hadn’t given his own family, and no matter how furious Christopher was, I wasn’t going to use Dominic’s diagnosis as a weapon in an argument. “He’s trying to reach you, Christopher. He has things he needs to say and you won’t let him near you.”
“Things he needs to say.” Christopher repeated it like it was poison. “Dominic has spent thirty years saying things. Sympathetic things. And every time, someone I care about, decides his version matters more than mine.”
“That’s not what’s happening here.”
“Isn’t it? You went to see him.You. The one person in this house I—” He stopped. His mouth closed hard on whatever word was about to come out.
“The one person you what?”
He didn’t answer. He looked at me and the fury in his eyes was starting to thin, and underneath it was something rawer. A feeling I recognized because I’d seen it once before, in the parking lot, in the car, in every moment where Christopher’s control failed and thereal personshowed through.
“My father chose him. Esmeralda chose him. The company chose him.” His voice fractured. “Seraphina chose him.”
Her name struck my heart like a thorn, drawing blood.
Seraphina.
The woman I now knew about from Dominic’s confession. The one who owned Christopher’s heart. Who ended up in his brother’s bed. But couldn't get erased from Christopher's memories. It sat in the room like a third person, invisible and heavy with history I couldn’t fully grasp the weight of.
“I know about Seraphina,” I said quietly.
He went still. Completely, entirely still. Like I’d touched a wound he didn’t know was exposed.
“Dominic told me. Not everything. Just that it happened.” I held his gaze. “And I’m sorry it happened to you. But I am not her, Christopher. I’m not going to do what she did.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How? How can you possibly know that?”
“Because I know who I am. And I know where I want to be. And I’m standing there right now, soaking wet, in your living room, looking at you.” My voice was steady even though my hands were not. “I went to see your brother because he asked and because I’m a person who can’t say no when someone is hurting. But I came home. I came back here. To you. Not to him. Toyou.”
The room was so quiet I could hear the rain hitting the windows. I could feel his breathing and my own heartbeat going unsteady every minute now.
“You’re mine.” The words came out rough, almost angry. “You belong to me and I will not lose you. Not to Dominic. Not to anyone.” His breathing became ragged. His hands were at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling. “I can’t. I can’t do it again.”
Something in me broke open, and I snapped toward him, not away.
I leaned forward, my lips found his with every ounce of frustration, tenderness, and the desire I’d been swallowing for weeks. He groaned against my mouth when my fingers curled in his shirt. And his mouth moved against mine. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was the argument continuing in a more intimate language. His mouth was hot and hard against mine and we tasted like rain and bourbon.
His hands found my waist, pulled me flush against him, and the rain-soaked fabric of my clothes pressed against the warmth of his body. I didn’t care about anything except the way he was kissing me, deep and consuming, his fingers threading through my wet hair, tilting my head back so he could kiss me harder.
“Don’t stop,” I breathed against his mouth.
