Page 58 of When She Falls (The Fallen)
“Ras?”
Silence.
“Ras?”
His jaw hardens, but he says nothing,
“Ra—”
“What?”
“Look, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
I open my mouth and shut it, unsure how to phrase it. I settle on, “For what I said. For assuming the worst.”
“It’s fine, Gemma. You already made it clear what you think of me the night of Mari’s wedding.”
I wince. “Yes, well, things have changed since then.”
“Have they?”
“It’s not lost on me that you didn’t have to—”
“Oh, but I did. I was just doing my damn job.”
“Why didn’t you ask someone else to watch over me? One of the staff?”
“I did. And then you woke up crying five minutes after I left. You were inconsolable. The staff called me back. Took me a half hour to get you to calm down.”
That renders me speechless.
My bottom lip makes an embarrassing tremble as I attempt to process what he just told me. He had to comfort me for half an hour while I cried? Did I mentally revert to a five-year-old child?
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“You kept saying how you didn’t want to be alone.”
A bitter taste floods my mouth.
I hate being alone. It terrifies me.
I’m not even sure why. Probably some incident from my childhood that I can’t remember. I don’t have a lot of clear memories from when I was a kid.
So I’d lived through one of my fears with Ras watching me from a front-row seat.
But he didn’t just watch.
He helped me through it, not leaving my side for two whole days, and even though I can’t recall everything, I recall enough.
His gentle touch against my skin. His soothing words when I was scared.
His familiar scent.
I cup my hands over my face as a realization cascades through me.
I don’t hate this man anymore.
