“See—” He moved forward and sat closer, tucking my hair behind my ear. “This is why I love you. Look how easily you can heal my heart. See how effortless it is for you to take my terrors away.” He shook his head looking down at his hand. “I just…I don't know where I’d be if I’d not found you.”
I laughed. “What do you mean?”
He looked up from our hands. “No one has ever cared so much before—to want to take my pain away and see that I dream of things that don't leave scars when I wake.”
I stroked his dimple with my thumb. “I'm sorry you never found a girl who would see you the way I do.”
His hand tightened even more on mine. “But I did find one.”
I smiled softly at him, attempting to hide the sympathy. “Yes, but, I want you to have love—like David and I do. I want you to find your eternal person.”
He chuckled. “Eternal person?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I found her. I'm just waiting for her to realise we were made for each other, then I get my happy ending.”
I pulled my hand free. “That won't happen.”
“I know.” He cupped his hands in his lap, nodding. “But eternity is a very long time. I can hope that, one day, you’ll feel the way I do.”
“If you really do care for me, then you won't think like that. Because, for all the confusion I have in my heart, I only want David.”
His head bounced in a kind of nod—to himself, I think. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. Then I hope you never love me. I hope you and David live eternally happy lives together.”
“Liar.”
We both laughed.
“I'm trying, Ara. I do want what's best for you. And if that's my brother, then, in my heart, he's who I want you to be with.”
“Then you should stop touching me like your girlfriend. If he saw that, he’d be really pissed.”
“Yeah, I know.” He moved his hands off my body. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Hey, can I ask you something?” He sat back on the chair beside my bed.
“Yeah.”
“Why didn't you demand I give your ring back?”
I frowned. “I didn't know that was an option.”
“Ara, you never sit by and let things happen if you don't approve. If you wanted that ring, you’d have stomped your foot until I gave it to you. So, why didn't you?”
I stared at him for a second. “You're reading into it too much.”
“Am I?” With a boyish grin, he reached for my hand, pressed my wedding band into my palm and folded my fingers around it. “Or are you just not telling me what you really think?”
I rolled over again, slipping the ring back in place. “Go away, Jason. You don't know anything about me.”
“Oh, don't know anything about you, huh?” He pulled the blanket away, his voice light with humour. “I know your ticklish spot.”
“No!” I squealed, jerking around as he dug his fingers into my ribs. “Stop!”
He laughed, his voice deep and gentle, while his strong fingers forced my body to thrash about in a very unladylike manner, wriggling and screaming. But he seemed so young and so human when he played this way that I really didn't want him to stop—and he knew that, so he didn't.
“See?” Breathless, a little puffed-out, he pinned both my hands beside my face and leaned right down. “I know more about you than anyone else in this world, Ara-Rose. And I know you didn’t ask me for that ring because you liked the fact that I had it. You liked knowing how it made me feel to carry it—as if I owned a part of you my brother never would.”
“What part?”
“The truth.”
I stiffened; he smiled, and his eyes slowly travelled from my face to where his legs rested between mine, Arthur’s button-down shirt rising up to reveal I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
He released my hands and pulled the shirt to cover me. “What happened down there tonight, Ara?”
“Where?”
“In the training hall. Why were you down there—practically naked?”
I swallowed, and the pictures of everything that happened flashed across my thoughts before I could stop them.
He swept my hair off my brow, frowning. “Whoa. Ara, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“What?” I looked up, half panicked.
“That’s what you were doing down there tonight? Arthur? Really?”
“I…” I blinked a few extra times. “You saw that?”
“Sweet girl, I saw everything.” He backed off me a little, resting on his knees, his hand on my open leg. “So that's what the dagger’s for—that’s what David wants it for?”
“And that’s why he hasn't been coming to see me.” I grabbed my locket. “He can't bear it. He’s wanted to tell me so badly, but he knows I’ll fight him on it. He’s planning to just disappear.”
Jason moved forward quickly, dropping his hands beside my shoulders, and looked down into my eyes, an intense stare swallowing all the animation from his face. “No.”
“No, what?”
He bit his lip, shaking his head. “No. I won't let this happen.”
“What?”
“I'm not letting you do this to yourself.” He reached down and started undoing my buttons. “I won't see you suffer my uncle’s touch then hate yourself for the rest of eternity.”
“I have to.” I cupped my hand over his. “I can't lose David.”
“But you can lose me,” he said, and rolled the shirt off my shoulder, opening my bare skin to the night.
“Jase—” My hand slowly came up to rest along his face. “If you father the heir, you’ll be going to your death.”
“Precisely.” He laughed.
“Why would you want that?”
“You don't know?”
I shook my head.
“You really have no idea what you are to me, Ara, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I…it would take a lifetime for me to show you how I feel. There are no words I could find to say it in one breath, and I love you just doesn’t hold enough weight for the feeling I have in my soul that you are everything. You are my life, my breath, my reason to get up, to smile, to live each day. I will never let you go.” He wiped his soft, long fingers down my cheek. “Don't you see? One day my brother will come back here, and I won't get to be with you anymore, and, eventually, that will kill me anyway.”