Chapter 8 #2
Eric paced, tapping his phone against his thigh. It was the middle of the night, and the tail end of the storm that had lashed the island for days had the wind howling without the muting rain to dampen the cries.
Maybe it was the restless night that had kept him from sleeping. Hours of tossing and turning, until he finally gave up and got up.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Nikolett.
More precisely, Zombie Nikolett yelling at him for daring to assume that she would have expected him to protect and rescue her.
Nikolett was smart and practical—she had her own security people, and probably her own set of “if I’m kidnapped” plans that had nothing to do with him.
Nikolett didn’t need his protection. Yes, the admiral of Hungary had used the fleet admiral’s resources to help with her security, but Nikolett didn’t need, or want, Eric to protect her.
She was surviving all on her own.
Which led him to thinking about Future Nikolett. That image kept changing. Sometimes there were no kids—he had no idea if she wanted any—and it was just the two of them sitting beside one another reading. Kissing in the rain and then laughing at how ridiculous they were.
Arguing about something that didn’t matter until the heat of anger turned into something else and they had hard, rough sex against the wall.
Eric threw himself into a chair, hunching forward with his phone in both hands. Elijah had insisted they’d come up with a plan for how he’d approach Nikolett in a way that could provide them both with “closure.”
But Elijah had insisted on talking more about why he’d deliberately avoided thinking about the future, what those first years as a missionary were like, and even why he’d first joined the Masters’ Admiralty. It had been days, and now that Eric knew what he wanted, he hated waiting to go after it.
It was late, he hadn’t slept, and the storm made him restless. A dangerous combination.
Slowly, he typed out a message he’d been composing in his head ever since it became clear that Elijah wanted to do more ground work on his understanding of relationships and his own ideas for the future before he reached out to her.
Eric had created his own private Nikolett Plan. Time to text.
Eric
I thought staying away meant protecting you. But I couldn’t stay away. Every time I see you, I feel like I’ll die if I don’t touch you.
He sounded like a melodramatic moron but didn’t delete the message the way he had a million times before.
Taking a deep breath, he hit send. It was late, but he assumed she’d have messages from him muted. Maybe she blocked his number and wouldn’t ever see it.
Either way, now that he’d started, he had to finish.
This chapter had to end so the next one could begin.
That’s a reason but not an excuse for my actions. I hurt you, knowingly. I’m sorry, Nikki.
Eric shot to his feet, needing to move. His thumbs tapped the screen.
That ends now. What we had, whatever it was, is over. I won’t treat you like that again. I won’t attempt to use the rules of the society to manipulate your life. I won’t try to protect you, when I know you’re able to protect yourself.
You don’t have to forgive me, but please believe me when I say I’m sorry, and I regret hurting you.
Nikolett’s phone buzzed again, rousing her from sleep. It wasn’t the special text tone that sounded when her security team, Nyx, or Grigoris messaged, just a faint vibration that was nevertheless enough to wake her.
She could probably leave it until morning, but Nikolett threw out an arm, slapping the bedside table several times before she grabbed it.
Rolling onto her back, she winced at the ache in her leg, and the weight of the cast that was back on. The 3D-printed one was both lighter and less bulky than the plaster, but it still hurt when she whacked it against her good leg.
Blinking against the brightness of the phone screen, she looked at her notifications.
Five new messages from Fleet Admiral Coward.
She sat up, no longer sleepy.
Nikolett opened the messages and read them.
Twice.
Fleet Admiral Coward
You don’t have to forgive me, but please believe me when I say I’m sorry, and I regret hurting you.
Mouth open in shock, she backed out of the app, then opened it again, making sure she wasn’t hallucinating.
Nope, the messages were real.
Eric had just apologized and then…broken up with her?
Nikolett slowly lay back, arms spread as if bracing herself.
What game was he playing? Was this really him? Maybe his phone had been stolen…
As far as she was concerned, whatever was between them ended the day Eric tried to marry her to Colum.
But clearly he hadn’t been able to let go—he’d kept her locked in his castle, like he was a dragon and she was some princess in distress.
He hadn’t been able to let it go…until now?
Why? What had changed?
Had he thought they were still…whatever they were…until just now?
That asshole.
Anger flared hot, bright, and brief.
Nikolett pulled a pillow over her face and screamed her frustration into it. Then she lay there, half smothering herself as her heartbeat slowed.
She flopped the pillow off her face. He thought he decided when they were done? She decided when they were done, and they’d been done since Amalfi. That day in Dublin had just proven one of her grandma’s favorite sayings—a szerelemben tobb a keser?, mint az édes.
In love, there is more bitterness than sweetness.
She picked up her phone and typed out several messages, each of which could be summarized as “fuck you, you asshole.” She deleted each one.
He didn’t deserve to get a reaction out of her. But she hovered, balanced on the point of a spike. A dozen options, but all of them felt wrong.
Reply and invite him to go fuck himself.
Send a screenshot to Grigoris and ask him to reach out to the Spartan Guard to see if there was something going on. Had something bad happened that might have prompted this confession?
Reply not with anger but with something bitingly cold. Show him with her words she didn’t care about him anymore.
Forgive him.
In the end, she chose the hardest option of them all. She didn’t reply.
It was a long time before Nikolett put her phone down and once again closed her eyes.
As she lay there in the dark, flashes of memories, both bitter and sweet, sparked in her mind. She should have stayed angry.
But a szerelem a bolcset is vakká teszi.
Love makes even the wise blind.
Maybe the proverb should be updated to “love makes even the wise stupid” because Nikolett’s anger had become a fatalistic sadness.
As if Eric’s words had just sealed her fate, and she had no idea what that fate may be.
It was nearly dawn before she went back to sleep, chased into her dreams by a heavy, aching feeling in her chest.