Chapter 16
Blake
I wake to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar windows and Peyton's weight against my chest. For a moment, I don't move, and just lie there cataloging sensations: the ache in my ribs, the throb in my shoulder, the way her breathing has synchronized with mine during the night.
We're still on the couch, still fully dressed, or wearing what's left of our clothes after last night's disaster. My tuxedo pants are streaked with soot and blood. Her black dress is torn at the hem, smudged with ash. We look like we survived a war because we did.
Peyton stirs, makes a small sound of protest as she wakes. Then she freezes, remembering where we are, what happened, and why.
"Hey," I say quietly. “Morning."
She lifts her head, and I see the moment reality settles back in. The fire. Silas. Her father. All of it.
"What time is it?" Her voice is rough from a red-wine-induced sleep.
"Just past nine." I check my phone, which Talia had delivered to our room during the night with a note: Forgot to give you this. Get some rest and don't do anything stupid. Merry Christmas -T
"How are you feeling?”
"Like I jumped out of a burning building and landed on my fucked-up shoulder." I try to smile. "But grateful to be alive. How about you, Miss Kingsley?”
"Exhausted…and thinking about how we still need to have that conversation." She stands and moves to the window.
Oh, damn. This is it.
“Let’s do it.”
She's quiet for a long moment, watching what seems to be the last of the forecasted snow flurries fall. When she finally speaks, her voice is carefully controlled. "Tell me everything. From the beginning. Don't leave anything out."
I stand despite my protesting ribs and move to join her at the window. I don’t touch her like I want to, but I stand close enough that I can see her reflection in the glass.
"I stayed in Wintervale for a few weeks after burning the warehouse." I keep my voice steady and factual. "I was lying low, trying to figure out my next move, even though Silas was furious and hadn't decided yet whether to kill me.”
Peyton's reflection shows no emotion. I hate that I can’t read her right now, but at least she’s listening.
"Your mother found me at the smoke shop where I was getting some vape supplies. I was smoking a lot back then,” I explain because I’m having an aha moment.
Since I’ve met Peyton, I haven’t been smoking as much.
Perhaps she is the calming force I never knew I needed.
“She'd been asking around about me, about what happened at White Ember.
She'd heard I was the one Delano who might actually be able to help her.” I shake my head.
“She was wrong, but she didn't know that yet. "
"What exactly did she say to you?”
"She mentioned she’d done some genealogy research and believed she was a Kingsley.
She said she was coming to me because she knew the family would fight her on it, because it would embarrass the Kingsleys’ Anglo, elitist image.
" I close my eyes, remembering Lila's face. It was so much like Peyton's, gorgeous and full of determination. "She thought she needed protection from bullying and harassment. I don’t think she knew exactly what going public would mean, and neither did I. She didn’t mention a Kingsley trust to me, and I really don’t think she even knew about it. In my opinion, I think she wanted to embarrass them.”
“But you said no to that.”
"I said no." The words taste like ash. “Because I wasn’t sure if her research was accurate, or if I wanted to get involved.”
“It didn’t seem important enough for you?” she asks with a venomous bite to her words. “It wasn’t human trafficking important?”
“Okay, Peyton.”
“I’m just saying.”
“I know exactly what you’re saying, but understand this.
I’m not a gun for hire, and I’m not a lawyer.
I didn’t know your mother, and I didn’t owe her anything.
If I knew what I know now, would I have handled things differently?
Fuck yeah. But hindsight is 20/20, Peyton.
And I can’t go back in time no matter how much I want to for you. ..and for her.”
“I wish you could.” Peyton's eyes fill with tears. “Did she mention me at all?”
“Your mom and I didn’t have another conversation after that one meeting, but I could tell she was a woman who wanted to leave you a legacy to be proud of. She didn’t want to be shoved in a corner any longer.”
“I wonder why she didn’t tell me.”
She rhetorically wonders about her mother’s motives out loud, but I answer anyway. “I don’t know.”
"When did you find out she died?"
"Three months later. June. I saw it on the news and heard them report it as a car accident, due to possible mechanical failure." I can still picture the headline and the photo they used. Lila was smiling at some political event, vibrant and alive, with the senator and a younger Peyton posing beside her. “Something about it didn’t sit right with my spirit, but I still didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle and wasn’t in the mood to solve a mystery.
By then, I decided to stay in Manhattan and never return to Wintervale. ”
Peyton's crying now, silent tears streaming down her face. “So…when Silas asked you to come home and protect me, did you know who I was?”
“Of course I did.”
“Then why keep it secret, Blake? Your one rule was honesty, and you broke it with me. I could tell something was wrong by the way you kept running from me the moment we got too close..”
“I suppose the only answer to why is that I'm a selfish bastard who wanted you to look at me the way you did on that terrace, like I was someone worth trusting.
Someone who could actually protect you instead of failing you like I failed her.
" I move closer, caging her body in with mine against the glass.
"And because the longer I waited, the harder it got to confess.
Every day that passed, every moment we got closer, made the secret heavier.
Until it felt impossible to tell you without losing you. "
"Secrets like that always come out."
"I know." I stop, force myself to be completely honest. “But I wanted more time. More moments where you looked at me like I was the best thing that ever happened to you. Where you chose me instead of running from me. I was greedy for it, Peyton. Greedy for you."
She's been quiet for so long, I think she's done, that this is where she tells me she can’t do it, and we're finished. Then she asks, "When did it change? When did protecting me stop being about guilt and start being about something else?"
"The moment I saw you on that terrace in that red dress, looking at the stars like you were planning to steal them. Silas wanted me to protect you, and I knew there must have been some ulterior motive on his part, but I just didn’t know what it was or care until I saw you.
Then I thought 'I'm fucked’ because I knew right then that I was going to fall for you and that it was going to destroy everything.”
"But you did it anyway."
“Even knowing I didn't deserve you, I couldn't walk away.
" I place my mouth close to her ear, half-expecting her to yank it away.
She doesn't. "Every moment with you has been selfish.
Every kiss, every conversation, every time I told myself I was protecting you—I was really just stealing more time. "
"Blake.”
"I'm not asking for forgiveness because you’re right, I broke my own rules.
But I need you to know that what I feel for you is real.
It's not guilt. It's not an obligation. It's not me trying to make up for failing your mother.
" I turn her around to face me, desperate for her to believe this if nothing else.
"I love you. The way you challenge everyone, the way you refuse to be controlled, the way you walked into a burning building to save me, even after you learned I'd betrayed you.
The way you taste. The way you glow when you come for me. I love all of it."
"My mother went to you for a reason.” Peyton's looking at me with an expression I can't read. Hurt, anger, and something that might finally be understanding. “She saw something in you and Blake? She was right. I love you too.”
The words break something in me. Three years of guilt, of self-loathing, of running, and it cracks under the weight of Peyton's forgiveness. My savage heart has been healed, and I owe it all to her.
"I don't deserve you," I say roughly.
"Probably not." She's smiling through her tears now, then kisses me softly, and it tastes like salt mixed with forgiveness.
"But Blake? No more secrets. Ever. If we're doing this, really doing this, it has to be built on complete honesty even when it's hard.
Even when you think the truth will hurt me. "
“Understood.”
"Good." She pulls back slightly. “Now let’s bring in Christmas the right way.”
I kiss her properly this time, pouring everything I feel into it, which is gratitude, relief, and a love so fierce it terrifies me. She responds with equal intensity, hands fisting in my ruined shirt, pulling me closer despite my injuries.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.
“You should probably take more pain medication, and then we should both shower because we smell like a bonfire."
I pop a Vicodin and start stripping.
“That sounds like a perfect fucking idea.”
“Uh-uh, sexy. Don’t get any ideas. You’re taking a shower for one.”
An hour later, we've both showered separately, though it took willpower I barely have. It feels like I haven’t been inside Peyton in weeks when it’s barely been 24 hours.
We’re both in plush, white Wintervale Grand robes, eating the Christmas breakfast Talia arranged to be sent to our room: coffee, pastries, fruit. Simple but good.
"What happens now?" Peyton asks, curled up on the bed with her coffee. "With Edmund, with the inheritance, with all of it?"