Chapter 29
The reckless moment had faded, leaving Marigold utterly raw, suspended between the blinding relief of physical intimacy and the cold, unyielding reality of the decade-long betrayal. All the accusations, all the stinging words, the insults couldn’t be unwritten with an ‘I’m sorry’.
They were somewhere quiet, a hidden nook by the creek, the scent of damp earth and moss. It was a place that should have washed away heartache, but instead the gentle rush of the creek only amplified the turmoil inside her.
The air between them was thick with unspoken anguish. Her body still thrummed with the aftershocks of his touch, but her heart was an open wound, pumping venomous truths back into her veins.
She stood there looking down at his head as he carefully dressed her.
Goldie’s body was a tight coil of contradictions.
She watched the serious intent in Lucian’s movements as he worked, his hands—the same hands that had just claimed her body with such brutal, intoxicating strength—now gently securing the strap of her pajama pants.
She told herself to ask him to leave her alone, but her mouth didn’t open.
He stood up and nuzzled her neck and said, “Please, Goldie. Give me another chance.” His scent—vetiver and the sharp musk of their shared passion—was a confusing, intoxicating anchor that made her knees weak. “Give me another chance to prove I can change.”
He had destroyed her once; she couldn’t let him do it again.
She bit her lip, knowing the words she wanted to say, but couldn’t.
A fierce internal battle raged. Her heart, traitorous and bruised, screamed for the impossible redemption he offered, yet her mind, cold and calculating, demanded the safety of distance.
She was a witch, and she needed to protect herself from the one person who had shattered her heart and could do it again with just a few words.
She closed her eyes and worked up all the nerves she had and said, “I need you to leave. I need time to think, to process everything.” The words felt foreign, forced past the tight, aching knot in her throat, a desperate attempt to regain control of a world that had tilted off its axis.
He stiffened, the warmth of his presence momentarily withdrawing.
Resting his forehead on hers, he stood there with his eyes closed.
He made the front of her feel warm, while the rock she leaned on was cold.
The contrast was a microcosm of their relationship: the blazing heat of Lucian’s passion against the cold, hard reality of anguish he had forced her to endure.
The warmth tempted her to lean closer. The stone reminded her why she couldn’t.
She waited for him to open his eyes to see what was hiding in those depths.
Finally, they opened, and he asked, his voice a low, rough rumble, “Do you really mean that?"
She said “yes” in a breathy whisper. The single syllable was thin, fragile, but final.
Lucian groaned as though the word had physically struck him. For a long moment, neither of them moved. The creek rushed past them, indifferent to the wreckage on its shore.
"I hate that answer,” he admitted quietly.
Goldie let out a shaky laugh that sounded dangerously close to a sob. “I know."
His hand rose to brush a loose strand from her face before falling away.
"But I’ll respect it,” he said. “For once, I’ll respect what you’re asking for."
Something in her chest cracked at that.
Lucian swallowed hard. “Take all the time you need, Goldie. A day. A week. A month.” His voice roughened. “I’ll still be here."
She couldn’t look at him. Because that was the problem. A part of her had never stopped wanting him to be.
He nodded and stood up. Her eyes, wide and desperate, drifted over every defined plane of his face: the sad eyes, the lips pulled tight, and the sharp definition of his jaw.
Every instinct, every physical memory of the last few hours, was a raw, screaming protest. Her heart was screaming to say she didn’t mean it, but her mind told her he never gave her a chance, so why should she offer him that opportunity.
He had so easily abandoned the tangible, beautiful reality of their love for the manufactured proof of a lie.
He had refused to listen to her, never giving her a chance to prove her innocence.
The memory of standing alone beneath the oak tree, begging him to look at her, to believe her, was the armor she needed now.
She would not surrender to the temptation of his remorse.
Without a word, he walked off down the path. His shoulders slumped as he tucked his hands into his pockets. She watched his back, yellow and gold leaves falling around him as he slowly vanished.
Goldie stayed leaning against the cold stone, unable to move, listening to the crunch of leaves under his heavy steps until the sound died completely.
I did the right thing; she told herself.
She had chosen self-preservation over the perilous, intoxicating offer of a second chance.
But as she watched the falling leaves, she wondered if choosing to be safe meant choosing to be permanently alone.