Chapter 35 #2
My eyes never left him, this man who'd once been my entire world and was now discussing my potential destruction with barely contained emotion.
But I could see the cracks in his armor now—the way his breathing had quickened when he mentioned the photographs, the possessive edge that crept into his voice when he spoke Dmitri's name.
"Have you seen them?" I asked, hating how small my voice sounded. "The photographs?"
His composure cracked completely. "Yes."
"And?"
He was quiet for so long I didn't think he was going to answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with suppressed emotion.
"They show a woman who I trusted completely. Who gave herself without reservation to someone she loved." His eyes found mine across the room, burning with an intensity that stole my breath.
"They're beautiful, Evangeline. And anyone who sees them will know exactly how you felt about me."
The admission hung in the air between us, loaded with implications neither of us was ready to address. If the photographs did indeed exhibit how I felt about him, they also revealed how he'd looked at me—with the same desperate love, the same overwhelming tenderness.
Which made his subsequent rejection all the more devastating.
"But that doesn't matter now, does it?" I said, my voice brittle with pain. "Since what we had was just entertainment. Good sex. Nothing more."
James flinched as if I'd struck him, his professional facade crumbling completely. "Evangeline—"
"Don't." I stood on shaking legs, six months of suppressed rage finally finding a target. "Don't you dare stand there and look at me like that when you're the one who walked away. You're the one who told me I meant nothing."
"I never—" He stopped, running a hand through his hair in the first unguarded gesture I'd seen from him.
"Christ, you have no idea what that day cost me."
"Cost you?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it again!.
“ Evan —”
“ SAY IT! GOD—DAMMIT ”
“You have no idea what that day cost me.”
Those words fell from the lips of a man that used to be my sanctuary, my protector, my sunrise and my moonlight. Now they fell from someone just as broken as myself, but I had to tell him exactly what he did to me.”
“Hmm let me paint you an exquisite — that's one of the words you used to describe me while we had ‘good sex’ you remember right?, I just thought I would jog your memory. A picture of unimaginable pain and not so delicious torture”
"You destroyed me, James. Completely and utterly destroyed me. And now you're standing here acting like you were the one who suffered?"
"I was protecting you—"
"From what? From being happy? From having a choice in my own life?" I moved closer, close enough to see the exhaustion etched in every line of his face.
"Or were you protecting yourself from having to deal with the complications of loving someone like me?"
Something dark and wounded flashed in his eyes. "Do you really think so little of me? That I would use you and walk away without a second thought?"
“Well when what you just described happened—well thought does not come into it”
"I don't know what to think anymore." The words came out broken, raw with months of accumulated pain. "All I know is that you looked me in the eye and told me I was entertainment. That our relationship meant nothing. And then you disappeared so completely it was like, you never existed."
"Because staying would have destroyed your life." His voice cracked on the words.
"Your mother made it very clear what the consequences would be if I remained in your life. Scandal, public humiliation, the end of your ability to rule effectively."
"So you made that decision for me. Without giving me any choice in the matter."
"I thought I was doing what was best—"
"What you thought was best." I shook my head, anger and heartbreak warring in my chest.
"The great James Banks, so noble and self-sacrificing. So convinced he knew what was right for the poor, helpless princess."
He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell his familiar cologne, could see the desperate sincerity in his eyes. "I was wrong."
The simple admission stopped my train of thought faster than a speeding train on broken tracks.
"Wh…. What?". My breathing caught in my throat at his proximity to me, and the admission of fault.
"I was wrong to make that choice for you. Wrong to think I could protect you by breaking your heart. Wrong to believe that walking away would somehow make things better." His voice was barely above a whisper now.
"I've regretted it every day for six months."
I stared at him in shock, my mind struggling to process what he was telling me. "You're saying you lied when you said I meant nothing?"
"I'm saying I lied about everything except loving you.
" His professional mask was gone completely now, revealing the raw pain beneath.
"Which is why I had to make you believe the opposite.
Because I was a coward who couldn't face telling you the truth—that staying together would come with a price I wasn't sure either of us could pay. "
The room seemed to spin around me as six months of carefully constructed reality crumbled. James hadn't used me and discarded me. He'd sacrificed his own happiness—our happiness—because he thought it was what was best for me.
"You broke my heart to save my reputation," I said, my voice hollow with disbelief.
"I broke both our hearts," he corrected quietly. " It almost killed me, Evangeline."
Before I could respond, he seemed to catch himself, professional walls slamming back into place with visible effort. "But that's not why we're here. The Kozlov threat is real and immediate. We need to focus on—"
"Stop." I held up a hand, unable to bear another word of his clinical detachment. "Just stop. You can't do that—you can't bare your soul one moment and then retreat into bodyguard mode the next."
"Evangeline, the situation with Dmitri—"
"Can and Will wait five more minutes while I process the fact that the man I believed destroyed my life actually destroyed his own to protect me."
I moved to the window, staring out at the London street below without really seeing it. "Six months, James. Six months of believing I wasn't worth fighting for. Of thinking you'd used me and discarded me like trash."
"I know. And I'm sorry. More sorry than I can ever express." His voice was rough with emotion he was fighting to control. "But right now, we need to focus on keeping you safe from—"
"From what? From Dmitri?" I turned back to face him, taking in the exhaustion etched in every line of his face, the way he was holding himself with rigid control. "Tell me something—if I marry him, will that make you happy? Will it prove that your noble sacrifice was worth it?"
The question looked as if it had temporarily stunned James, disrupting his thought process. "No."
"No?"
"It would kill me." The admission was barely audible, torn from him against his will. "The thought of you with him, of him touching you, of you having to endure his—" He stopped, jaw clenching as he fought for control.
"Then help me," I said quietly. "Not as my former bodyguard. Not as a security consultant. As the man who claims to love me. Help me find a way out of this that doesn't involve sacrificing my happiness for political expediency."
For a moment, I thought he might reach for me. Might close the distance between us and hold me the way he had in Sicily, when the world had been simpler and love had seemed like enough.
Instead, he straightened his shoulders, slipping back into professional mode like armor. "I'll handle the Kozlov situation. The photographs will never see the light of day, and Dmitri will withdraw his proposal."
"And then what? You disappear again? Go back to pretending we never happened?"
Pain flashed across his features before he could hide it. "If that's what you want."
"What do I want?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "What I want is for you to stop making decisions about my life without consulting me. What I want is honesty instead of noble lies. What I want—"
I stopped, the words caught in my throat.
Because what I wanted was impossible, wasn't it?
Too much had broken, causing too much damage.
Even if James still loved me,and if his leaving had been a misguided attempt at protection, how could we possibly rebuild something that had been built on deception from the start?
"What do you want, Evangeline?" he asked softly, I looked at him—really looked at him—taking in the man beneath the professional facade.
The exhaustion, the carefully controlled emotion, the way he was fighting not to reach for me.
This wasn't the cold, calculating bodyguard who'd dismissed me six months ago.
This was someone who'd been suffering just as much as I had, who'd made an impossible choice and lived with the consequences every day since.
"I want to know what happens next," I said finally. "Not the official plan, not the security protocols. What happens between us?"
He was quiet for a long moment, studying my face as if trying to memorize every detail. "That depends entirely on whether you can forgive me for the choice I made six months ago."
"And if I can't?"
"Then I'll spend the rest of my life making sure you're safe and happy, even if it's from a distance."
The simple certainty in his voice nearly undid me. "And if I can?"
Something vulnerable and hopeful flickered in his eyes before he could hide it. "Then we could try to rebuild what I destroyed. If you're willing to take that risk."
Before I could answer, the door opened and Dr. Harrison returned, Mother behind him looking frailer than I'd seen her in years. She took in the scene—my tear-stained face, James's obvious emotional turmoil, the charged atmosphere between us—and sighed heavily.
"I see you've told her about the photographs," she said to James.
"We were discussing the situation," he replied carefully, professional mask sliding back into place.
"I wasn't talking about just the photographs," Mother said quietly, settling into a chair as if the weight of secrets had finally become too much to bear. "I was talking about why you really left six months ago."
I looked between them, understanding dawn like a cold sunrise. "You knew. You knew he was lying when he said those things to me."
Mother's composure finally cracked completely. "I asked Evangeline. I convinced him it was the only way to protect you from a scandal that would have destroyed your ability to rule effectively."
The betrayal was complete now, total and devastating. Not only had James lied to me, but Mother had orchestrated the entire thing. Had sat by and watched me break apart over a man who'd never stopped loving me.
"Both of you," I whispered, rage and heartbreak warring in my chest. "Both of you decided what was best for me without giving me any choice in the matter."
And somewhere in Bellavista, Dmitri Volkov was waiting for an answer to his proposal, backed by photographs that could destroy my reputation and a criminal network that wanted to control the crown through marriage.
The web of lies and manipulation was complete. The only question now was whether I was strong enough to break free from it—and whether the man who'd broken my heart to save my reputation was worth the risk of loving again.