Chapter 33 #2
“I was protecting you from Baron,” I say, and even as the words leave my mouth, I know how hollow they sound. “If I’d stopped collecting, he would’ve sent someone else. Someone who wouldn’t have been as... lenient.”
“Lenient.” She says the word like it tastes rotten. “You think what you did was lenient?”
I don’t answer. I can’t, because she’s right. Every word out of my mouth sounds like justification for something that has no justification. I thought I was being clever. Strategic. Protecting her from Baron whilst building a safety net she didn’t know existed.
But all she saw was a man who took her money whilst she went hungry.
The guilt I feel is an emotion that I’ve never had to deal with before. It almost cripples me. But it’s no excuse.
The lockbox hits the floor with a hollow thud. Notes scatter across the expensive carpet like accusatory confetti.
“I hate you,” she says, and the words are quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that comes before something breaks permanently.
I step towards her. “Lidiya—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand, and I stop. “Don’t touch me. Don’t say my name like it means something to you. Don’t stand there and pretend you did this for me when you did it for yourself.”
“That’s not—”
“You wanted to be the hero,” she continues, and her voice is gaining volume now, strength born from fury. “You wanted to swoop in with a pile of cash and watch me be grateful. You wanted me to owe you something bigger than a hundred pounds a week. You wanted me dependent on you.”
“I wanted you safe,” I snap, and my own temper flares because she’s twisting this into something uglier than it was. “I wanted you free of a debt that wasn’t yours. I wanted—”
“What you wanted doesn’t matter! And you paid the fucking debt off anyway! You said you did!”
“Yes, but that was after I—” I cut myself off.
I was going to say I got you here, but I don’t think that would go down very well right now.
“That was after you were here and you knew me, and I had a reason to protect you. One that Baron would accept. Do you think he would accept his son paying off random debts owed to our family?” I shove my hand through my hair and exhale sharply through my nose.
“I understand what I did was wrong. I see that now. I didn’t at the time.
I didn’t understand how much you needed that money.
I should have. It was an oversight I wasn’t willing to see or examine too closely. ”
“Why?” she spits out. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
I stare at her, watching as her anger transforms her—shoulders rigid, jaw tight, eyes burning with a heat that could scorch the air between us.
She’s right. It does make me uncomfortable. Poverty is something I’ve never had to think about, let alone experience. It’s an abstract concept to men like me.
Men like me. Those words she threw at me on Friday night says it all.
But watching Lidiya count coins with shaking hands every Friday? That should have made it real. It should have made me see that what I was taking from her wasn’t just money. It was meals, warmth, dignity.
“Yes,” I admit, because lying to her now would destroy whatever fragile thread still connects us.
“It makes me uncomfortable. I’ve never had to worry about money.
Not once in my entire life. I don’t know what it’s like to skip meals or choose between heating and eating.
I should have seen it. I should have understood. ”
She wraps the towel tighter around herself. “But you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t.” The admission tastes like ash coating my tongue. “I saw you struggling, and I told myself I was helping by keeping the money safe. That when I gave it back, you’d have enough to actually change something instead of just surviving another week. It was arrogant. It was blind. It was—”
“It was cruel,” she finishes. “You had all the power, and you used it to make yourself feel better about taking from someone who had nothing.”
The words land like punches, each one finding a weak point I’ve been trained to ignore. The truth is sharp and unforgiving, and I let it cut because it’s deserved.
I drop to my knees, head lowered and hear the gasp she tries to stifle.
“You’re right,” I say. The words feel like I’ve pulled shrapnel from a wound.
“Everything you’re saying is right. I had the power, and I misused it.
I thought I was being strategic for you when really, I was just being a privileged bastard who couldn’t see past his own assumptions. ”
She stares at me, and I can’t see it, but I can feel the burn of it. She deserves every second of it. The anger wants to stay. It’s easier to hold onto than the alternative—accepting an apology from a man who just admitted to hurting her whilst claiming to protect her.
“I can’t undo it,” I say quietly, because silence right now feels like cowardice.
“I can’t give you back the meals you skipped or the nights you froze because you couldn’t afford heating.
But I can give you this.” I gesture to the scattered notes on the floor.
“And I can tell you that I will never make decisions about your life again. I’ve never been in your shoes.
I’ve never experienced what you have. That doesn’t make me know more.
If anything, it makes me know less. I was wrong. Can you forgive me?”
“Forgive you?” she croaks. “How dare you ask me that?” She hisses before I can say anything, not that I was going to. “I used to think your father was the devil. But it wasn’t him, not really. It was you.”
Her words cut deep, and for once in my life, I have absolutely no idea how to fix this mess I created.