10. Karolina
KAROLINA
He recoils as though I’ve burned him, releasing me from his careful but unbreakable grip.
I sit upright and peer at him, studying the impossibly handsome face of my professor. He looks nothing like the boy I loved.
Except for the blue eye peering at me.
And the guarded way he’s looking at me tells me I’m right.
I’ve figured it out.
He’s been lying to me for so much longer than the last few weeks in York.
Rand is Bones. And Bones is Brandon.
My first love.
My dead first love.
My hand cracks across the perfect plane of his cheek, and my palm smarts.
He’s real.
He’s alive.
He blinks hard.
I can’t stop staring at his blue eye.
“You’re alive?” I choke out. “All these years, I thought… And you’re alive?!”
He grasps my hand before I can slap him again.
“Say it again.”
“You’re alive.” I hurl the words at him. “You let me think I killed you.”
“No, not that. Say my name.”
I narrow my eyes at him, anger warring with soul-deep relief.
“You were going to share me with Carter,” I accuse. “You betrayed me.”
He cups my nape, drawing me closer. “Never. I don’t know how he found out about us, but I would never share you. You’re my Karolina.”
I can’t suppress a shudder, and it’s not an involuntary reaction of disgust; the reverence with which he says my name is as intense as ever, even if his voice is a bit deeper now, gravellier with age.
How did I not recognize it before?
“You’ve been lying to me for years. Why should I believe you about this?”
Because I want to believe him so desperately that it scares me.
Here he is: changed, but whole and breathing.
Not dead.
I didn’t murder my first love.
I can’t help myself; I caress his face, tracing his high cheekbones and the granite outline of his square jaw. My fingers slip through the blood that oozes sluggishly from the cut on his forehead. He leans into my touch with a low groan.
I withdraw immediately. “I hurt you.”
He captures my hand and presses my palm to his blood-slicked cheek. “Don’t stop. Nothing you could do would hurt me. There’s nothing you could do that would ever make me leave you.”
He’s said it before as Rand.
It means so much more now.
Years of anguish weigh heavy on my heart.
The man I was coming to care for is actually the boy I’ve always loved. Even when I thought me betrayed me to Carter, I still loved the memory of him.
But he’s not just a memory. He’s not the same teenager he was back in our foster home, but he’s here with me now.
Solid and real and vital.
“Brandon.” His name leaves my lips on a shaky exhalation, a prayer for forgiveness.
He brackets my cheeks with both hands, and he tugs me closer. His lips descend on mine, taut with years of pain and longing.
The kiss is familiar, even though his lips are fuller than they used to be. I didn’t recognize him in our moments of passion in the last few weeks because it seemed impossible that he could’ve survived that gunshot to the face.
And I’ve never kissed anyone else. I didn’t know to discern a difference between the teenage boy who held me with harsh passion and my possessive, protective professor.
Here he is: both the same boy from my foster home and the same man I’ve come to know since moving to York.
It’s jarring, even as it feels so right that my heart aches at our reunion.
A shudder wracks my chest: desire, relief, and a hint of horror.
The depths of his deception are even more insane than I realized.
His obsession makes so much more sense now, but that doesn’t excuse his lies.
I turn my face away, forcibly breaking our kiss. His hands firm on my cheeks, clinging on to me as though he can’t bear to be parted from me ever again.
I stare into his eyes. That blue eye.
I want him to take out the other contact lens. It’s beyond disquieting to look into Rand’s eyes and Brandon’s eyes at the same time.
“Why?” I ask, a rough plea. “You let me think you were dead all these years. And then you lied to me as Bones and as Rand. Why did you do that?” My voice goes ragged with pain. “How could you do this to me?”
He glances away, and shame colors his cheeks. “After the shotgun blast…” He swallows hard. “I was a monster, Karolina. More so than I ever was.”
I peer at him. “What do you mean? You never treated me badly when we were young. You weren’t a monster.”
His gaze snaps back to mine. “I was never good enough for you, but I claimed you for myself anyway. After that night… My face…”
My stomach churns. All that blood. The flash of bone through ruined flesh.
My fault.
“I didn’t mean to.”
I hate the weak echo of my useless excuse.
“I can never atone for what I did, but it was an accident.”
He caresses my cheek, and I realize I’m crying when his thumb wipes away wet heat.
“Why are you here if you survived that?” I ask. “You must hate me for what I did to you.”
“I could never hate you. I failed to protect you that night. I tried to shove the gun away. I know it was an accident.”
He says it like an absolute truth, but I see the flicker of doubt that darkens his blue eye.
Some part of him is afraid of me. He thinks it’s possible that I wanted to shoot him.
I could crush him with a word. Despite what I did to him, somehow, he’s been fighting to get back to me for years. He’s designed a whole new face and created an entirely new identity to win me back.
I’m not ready to excuse his lies, but I can’t bear to cause him more pain.
I place a hand against his chest, where he tattooed my name over his heart. “Yes,” I promise. “It was an accident. The biggest regret of my life. Regret doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
I broke both our hearts that night.
I study him with cautious hope. “You really didn’t tell Carter about us? You weren’t planning to share me with him?”
His jaw flexes. “You’re mine. I would never allow another man to touch you.”
I think about how he’s protected me as Rand. How he used to handle me with harsh possessiveness when we were teenagers.
“No,” I breathe. “I don’t think you would. I’m sorry I doubted you that night. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. Sorry will never be enough. Even when I thought you betrayed me, I couldn’t bear it. I’ve barely learned to live with it. Some part of me died with you that night.”
He tenderly strokes my hair. “I didn’t die.
My love for you didn’t die. I’m still the same person who loved you more than anyone I’ve ever known.
I didn’t know what love felt like until I saw you for the first time.
I thought I was incapable of it. It’s only ever been you, Karolina.
I know I’ve lied to you, but everything I’ve done has been for you.
I always planned to come back to you someday. ”
He gently shushes me as he wipes away more tears from my cheeks.
“But why lie to me? Why pretend to be someone else?” An echo of my anger over his deception flutters in my chest. “I suffered for years thinking I was a murderer. I would’ve done anything to take it back. You could’ve told me the truth instead of pretending to be Bones.”
His cheeks flush again. “Everything I told you about making my fortune in the ring was true. I did bad things. I didn’t want to come back to you as that broken boy.
When I had enough money, I fixed my face for you.
I became the man you deserved.” He shakes his head.
“But that was a lie I told myself. I’ve never deserved you.
I don’t think I ever will, but I can’t bring myself to leave you. I belong with you.”
My fingers flex against his chest, as though I can grasp his heart in my hand and hold him impossibly close.
“I didn’t know Rand. I was falling for him, but I didn’t love him. Maybe I would have one day, but the devotion scared me. It didn’t make sense.”
His features tighten with anguish. “Will you ever love me again?”
My soul tugs towards his. “I want to,” I admit on a ragged whisper. “But I don’t know if I can trust you anymore. There are so many lies between us now. I know I hurt you when I shot you, but you hurt me, too, Brandon. The nightmares about what I did to you…”
My vision blurs, and he pulls me into a warm embrace.
He’s so much bigger than he used to be when we were seventeen. His arms are strong and corded with muscle, and his chest is hard beneath my cheek.
“Forgive me,” I beg on a broken sob.
He strokes a broad hand up and down my spine. “There’s nothing to forgive. Nothing that happened is your fault.”
I ache to believe him, but years of guilt are too heavy to dispel with a few words.
His body flexes around me. “If I could kill Carter myself, I would’ve done it a thousand times over. I would’ve made it slow.”
I shiver at the memory of Carter’s blank, lifeless stare.
“Does that scare you?” Brandon asks. “That I want to make him scream for trying to rape you? For tearing us apart for years?”
I shake my head and lean into him. “I’m not scared of you. But he’s not the only one who separated us. You should’ve come back to me so much sooner. You should’ve told me the truth years ago. I wouldn’t have cared what you looked like. Nothing would’ve changed how I felt about you.”
He tenses. “But your feelings are changed now?”
I hold him tighter, even as I admit, “I’m scared to trust you again.”
His elegant fingers trail through my hair. “I know. You need time. I understand you, Karolina.”
Yes, he understands me like no one else.
It’s terrifying how badly I want to tell him I still love him. That I’ve always loved him.
But he’ll have to earn my trust back. No matter how desperately I want to be with Brandon—the first love I thought I lost forever—I can’t simply tear down the protective walls around my heart.
They’re too solid to crumble so easily; they’re all that’s kept me safe and able to function ever since my parents died.
I become aware of warmth on my shoulder. It’s not my own tears.
Brandon is still bleeding.
I hurt him. Again.
My heart twists, and I force myself to pull away from the miracle of his embrace.
“You’re hurt,” I murmur, gently brushing his cut brow.
He leans into my touch rather than flinching away from the pain.
“We need to clean this up,” I insist. “You should see a doctor.”
He fixes me with a steady, mismatched stare. “We’re not leaving this estate until I eliminate whoever is threatening you. I have a first aid kit at the house. I know how to patch myself up.”
I get to my feet, taking his hands to pull him up along with me. “Then let’s go back. You’re still bleeding.”
“I’ve had far worse,” he reassures me, his hand caging mine as he starts to walk out of the woods with me. “I probably won’t even need stitches.”
I fix him with a no-nonsense look. “You were unconscious for a few minutes. That’s dangerous, Brandon.”
To my shock, he grins despite the pain he must be experiencing. “You don’t know how good it feels to hear you say my name. I thought I’d never hear it again.”
“And whose fault is that?” I challenge gently. “I’m so relieved that you’re alive, but I won’t forget what you did so easily. You pretended to be someone else. I’m still processing it.”
His thumb rubs my palm in reassurance. “I know. I’ll earn your trust again. Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
That should scare me, but it doesn’t. I don’t want to lose sight of him now that I know he’s Brandon.
He’s alive.
It’s the most disconcerting miracle I ever could’ve imagined.