She was shaking, and tears burned the backs of her eyes. She wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t.
“Or maybe the real problem,” he went on, his voice scratchy now with emotion, “the thing you really can’t get past, even after all this time, is that my father killed your mother, and I’m a Sinclair. No matter what, that will never change. We agreed not to talk about it back then, we agreed that we had less of a chance to escape as enemies. And so we put it aside, out of necessity. But that necessity ceased to exist once we were free, didn’t it? We never discussed it, Noelle, and maybe we need to now, because you’ve never let it go. Look at me.” She did. She lifted her eyes to his face. She owed him that much. “Does it fester inside? If you had acknowledged me as Callie’s father, she’d be a Sinclair too. By blood, she is. Which is it, Noelle? Are you afraid that we’ll take from you again like we did before? Or is it that when you look at me, when you look at our daughter, you wonder what your mother would think? How your father would feel? Does loving me seem like the deepest betrayal you could possibly commit?”
She let out a sob, but she didn’t break eye contact. “Sometimes both.” The whispered words eked from her lips like poison. She was afraid, and she was ashamed. It was awful, and it was true. He was right—her fear and her guilt had festered—and because she’d allowed it, part of her had rotted too. The admission had actual weight, because when it dropped from her lips, her shoulders curled forward, and she felt like she might fall to the floor.
He stepped forward, taking her in his arms, and she leaned against him. “I love you, Noelle. I would do anything to protect you. And our daughter. Haven’t I proved that? Haven’t I?” A moan made its way up her throat. He was solid and warm, and yes, he’d always protected her with everything he had to give. He’d always stepped toward her when perhaps he should have stepped away. She’d just confided her deepest, most shameful secret. She hadn’t even ever verbalized it for herself. But he had, because he knew her and loved her anyway. His father had used the legal system once to take from them—not just her mother’s life but her father’s dignity, his trust, their happiness, their future. But Evan would never do that. She didn’t deserve him. She didn’t want to be that person, so irrational and so unfair. No one was responsible for the sins of their father, least of all Evan, who had only ever been good to her.
And, really, maybe he had reason to hate her too. Him being a Sinclair was part of the reason she’d kept Callie from him, and he should at least hate her for that, but he didn’t. Was it possible her own father, the man she’d loved and trusted, had somehow arranged for him to be put in a cage and tortured for something he did not do?
It was all sick. So much sickness. So much depravity. And she suddenly realized that, amid all the muck, they might be the only thing that wasn’t. She’d gotten it all wrong. So backward. In some small way, she’d started becoming what their fathers were, whether she’d known the extent of their perversion or not. Noelle and Evan were a rejection of all the sickness and disease that had come before them. Of all the lies, they were the truth. Or they could be. And somehow, deep inside, she knew they must celebrate that if they were going to continue forward. Because it was the only thing that would offer the strength they’d need. If hate was darkness, then their love would be the light.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”
He took another step toward her. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“There is. There is. I’ve loved you all these years, Evan. I love you. I do.” The truth. And it set her free from a different kind of cage.
He let out a groan that was filled with relief, and when he leaned in to kiss her, she didn’t only let him, she met him halfway. They were like an explosion, like a galaxy melting, like the hottest fire that ever burned. They stumbled toward the couch, their lips never parting, tongues entwined, every atom in her body trembling with the singular need she’d held at bay for so, so long. Maybe it was so good because they’d known the depths of despair together. Maybe each joining would forever be a celebration that . . . they. Were. Not. There. Was that so bad? To rejoice? To be joyful in each other’s presence, a constant exalting of the fact that they both were free of the chains they’d once worn? Free to love. Free to feel pleasure. No bars between them, not even air.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO