Chapter Thirty
I’d come to watch her sleep as I did most nights.
It had almost become a routine, especially because she had no idea that I even did this.
Maybe it had simply been that watching her sleep had been something I’d dreamed about a third of my life.
Back at Summit Crest Preparatory, I would imagine the two of us not having to slink back undetected to our rooms, and that we could instead fall asleep in each other’s arms and wake up in them, too.
The one night we really had to actually do it intentionally and not by accident had been our wedding night.
After I had fucked her to sleep, I lay there staring over at her and feeling a sense of contentment I’d never felt in my life before.
All was actually right in my world for the briefest of moments, until I had finally gone to sleep as well.
“Cillian, what are you doing in here?” I heard her ask, and looking up from my glass, I stared at her silhouette as she sat up in bed. “Answer me.”
“I’d beaten myself up for so many years,” I said. Without elaborating, I stared back down at the glass of liquor, which was the last thing I wanted right now.
“About what?” she tentatively asked me.
“You! If only I hadn’t gone to sleep the night of our wedding. If I had stayed up, I never would’ve allowed you to leave. If you had stayed, you’d be alive.”
A small sob left her, but it was just a solitary one. “It wouldn’t have changed anything,” she finally murmured.
“It would’ve changed everything for me.”
And it hit me in that moment that although I still had so much anger inside of me over her duplicity, the simple truth of the matter was that I’d missed her.
Over the years, I’d only had her ghost and a slew of memories that taunted me without mercy.
Now, she was in my world. Alive, and so goddamn beautiful still that the mere sight of her was enough to take my breath away.
Men, especially Brannington ones, didn’t tolerate betrayal.
They punished it. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her again, not after what my grandfather had already taken from her.
“He took a lot from me, too.”
“What are you talking about, Cillian?” she asked. “How much have you had to drink? Are you drunk now?”
I chuckled wryly. “I’d poured this glass, but I’ve yet to have a single sip of it. Over the last seven years, I’d used this fucking poison to stop the memories...to erase them from my head...from my heart...But, you’re here now, and it’s real and not some fucked up mirage I can’t quite reach.”
“The past is best left in the past,” she said, and I stared straight ahead at her.
“So, why were you imagining me as you made yourself come?”
She gasped softly, but in the silence of this room, it was fully audible. “You need to leave, Cillian. Please!”
Reagan was right, and after forcing myself to stand, I tried to move my legs, but they were rooted in place.
She didn’t want to be around me any more than I wanted to be around her, so it should’ve been easy to just go.
My heart and my head wanted much different things, though.
I could feel her gaze centered on me, and deciding it was a huge mistake to come here after all, I gathered what little sense I could muster and walked toward the door.
Once I reached it, I set the glass down onto the top of the dresser, then stopped.
“I hate you, or at least I should, but the truth of the reality is that I really don't hate you at all,” I said softly.
There were a few seconds of silence, and I convinced myself that she had thankfully not heard me, but then she got out of bed, and I sniffed the air to smell the scent of her shampoo as she drew closer to me. “What kind of game are you playing, Cillian?”
“Nothing about us is a game now, or has ever been.” I was still staring straight ahead, so I hadn’t realized she meant to touch me until I felt the slight shock from her fingers as she placed one of her hands on my arm.
“You’re so confusing. One minute you hate me, and the next you can’t bring yourself to leave. I’m here in Ireland and a prisoner, as you so eloquently put it before, so what the hell else do you want from me? Do you want to see me cry? Bleed? What is it that you need to finally let me go?”
It happened in a blur, but Reagan went from standing beside me to being pinned between me and the wall. The moonlight was shining through the window and exactly at the spot where we stood, so I could see her watery eyes as she stared up at me.
“All I've ever wanted and needed in this miserable, godforsaken life has been you.”
Another sob escaped her at my words. Reagan didn’t say anything, instead choosing to bring one of her shaky hands to my face. I turned into her palm and we stood there for several long seconds this time.
“I’d wanted you, and us, so badly, Cillian. Why did you let it happen?”
My head dropped back, and I took a few breaths before leaning back in, this time pressing my forehead to hers.
“Because I’d needed you. And God knows I’d wanted you.
My grandfather tried to keep us apart, but no matter what he did to me that summer, all I had thought about was getting back to New York to see you.
..To be with you...I would’ve endured and promised anything to make that happen. ”
“What did happen to you that summer?” she asked me. “You came back, but you weren’t the same.”
“How could I be the same? He’d forbade me from seeing you ever again.
One might say that he’d tried to beat the sense into me, but I’d taken every blow because I knew we’d be reunited again.
It’s why I had to see you as soon as I’d gotten back to school.
” The memories of that awful call returned, and I pulled my head back and began to shake it from side to side.
“What happened after we’d made love? Why were you so scared that night, Cillian?”
“I can’t go there. Don’t make me,” I pleaded with her.
“You wouldn’t tell me then, but I need you to tell me now.
Do I not even deserve that much after what has been taken from me?
You don’t have to be afraid. Whatever it is, you can tell me.
” I shook my head. She had a point, but each time I remembered that phone call, I was reminded that I had been the one to put this all into motion. “Please.”
Her plea was my undoing. “It’s not fear, but shame because it’s all my fault. Your mother and sister are dead because of me.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said to me, and I looked up at her incredulously.
“I knew to stay away from you, but I couldn’t bring myself to follow his demands. And even after I’d been caught, I’d still lied to him. I never had any intention of leaving for Ireland the next morning, especially knowing he would throw me back into the fucking hole. He...He...Ummm, he...”
I couldn’t continue, so I stopped even trying. Reagan wouldn’t be denied, though.
“What did he do?”
“Don’t make me say it,” I said to her. “If I do, it’ll only remind me of what happened.”
“I need to know, and you obviously need to get it off your chest. You were in here because you’re wracked with guilt. Let the truth assuage it. Tell me why he made you drag me to a wedding chapel in the middle of the night.”
“He thought he’d hung up, but I’d heard him.
My grandfather didn’t trust me to let you go, so he’d told his men to kill you.
And they did. Or I thought they did. After I’d saved you, I’d woken up to your note and was racing back toward the school when he’d called to me that I’d been too late.
You were gone, and all I’d have left from that point forward were memories and your eyes. ”
Reagan started to sob more, and at the sound of her tears, I couldn’t handle them right now. Hauling her into my arms, I buried her face against my chest as I kissed the top of her head repeatedly.
“I’d loved you so much, but in an instant, you were gone. And you’ve stayed gone since that fucking morning.”
She pulled her head back, then ran one of her hands over my face.
After she hooked it around my neck, Reagan rose up onto her toes as she pulled my head down.
“I’m here, Cillian. And, I’m not going anywhere, not that you’d let me.
” She let out a sarcastic laugh, but continued.
“You’d told me I was a prisoner here, but the only one captive is you.
Let go of the pain and slip through those bars. Take back your life—”
“You are, and have always been, my goddamn life, Anamchara,” I said to her moments before I silenced any other words by slamming my mouth over hers.
The second her lips parted, I thrust my tongue inside and pulled her closer to me.
I ravenously ate at her lips like a starving man.
All of this time, with and without her, and I still couldn’t shake her.
But I wanted to make her shake. And to squirm.
To writhe underneath me as I gave her what we both so desperately needed.
Tearing my mouth from hers, I began to kiss along the side of her face, then over her jaw and chin before biting down on the throbbing pulse of her throat.
Reagan clung to me, and neither of us said a damn thing.
I doubted that she wanted to break this moment any more than I did.
My lips moved lower as I kissed and nibbled along her shoulder, making her shiver in response.
I pushed one of the silk straps over her shoulder and let it hang loosely on her arm before moving to the other side to free that shoulder as well.
Once or twice, she moaned but otherwise stayed silent.
I stopped for a moment to free her arms from the straps before attacking her bare neck once more.
As I did, I reached in front of me, and with one quick jerk, I tore the flimsy material off her.
Once her gown had been shed, I backed her into the wall and pressed myself against her.