Chapter 232

Kylie looked at him, her hand still pressed against her chest.

"But you aren’t."

Christian said nothing.

He had a thousand things he wanted to tell her. A thousand ways to explain that he hadn’t meant to hurt her, that he had never wanted her to feel trapped, that if he could go back and do things differently, he would.

Kylie wiped her cheeks with the heel of her palm.

"Get out."

Christian stared at her. "Kylie..."

"Please." Her voice trembled. "Just get out."

Hearing those words from Kylie frightened him. She wanted him gone.

He swallowed. "Okay."

Her face crumpled for the briefest second before she turned away.

That almost destroyed him.

He wanted to reach for her. To turn her around and gather her into his arms. To press his face into her hair and tell her that he was sorry, that he would spend the rest of his life learning how to love her properly if she would only let him.

He made himself take a step towards the door. When he got to the door, his hand closed around the handle.

Behind him, Kylie let out a shaky breath.

Christian closed his eyes. He turned around.

"Kylie."

She didn’t look at him. "Please don’t make this harder than it already is." Her voice broke on the last word.

He felt the pain beneath his ribs. Christian’s fingers tightened around the door handle. "Let’s talk, Kylie."

She laughed, but there was no humour in it. "I don’t want to. Get out."

He released the handle. "I don’t know what else to do, Kylie."

"Then leave."

He looked at her.

Tears streaked down her face.

He took one step towards her, and then stopped. "Tell me what you want me to do, Kylie, and I will."

She lifted her head.

He was looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before.

There was no charming smile, no clever remark waiting behind his teeth, and no easy confidence that he could find the right words, make the right call, and somehow turn an impossible situation into something manageable.

He looked lost.

"Get out, Christain." she whispered.

"You don’t mean those words." Chrustain eyes reddened. "Talk to me. You don’t have to organise what you have to say. Just say them." he urged her.

"You can’t promise me that you’ll never hurt me."

"I know."

"You can’t promise me that loving you won’t become another thing I have to be afraid of."

His lips parted. For a moment, he couldn’t speak. Because she was right.

He couldn’t promise that he would never make another mistake. He couldn’t promise that their relationship would never hurt, that they would never misunderstand each other.

He could promise to listen.

He could promise to let her be angry without trying to fix the feeling before she had finished expressing it.

He could promise to stop confusing his ability to protect her with a right to control her.

"I can’t promise I’ll never get anything wrong," he said, his voice rough. "But I can promise that I’ll listen when you tell me I’ve hurt you. I can promise that I’ll stop deciding what you need before I even ask you."

Kylie shook her head.

"Christian..."

"And I can promise that you will never owe me your love because of something I’ve given up." He swallowed. "Not my name. Not my money. Not my family. Nothing."

Her eyes glistened. "You don’t understand."

"Then help me understand."

"I can’t!" The cry tore out of her.

She covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking.

Christian stood there, watching her fight to hold herself together, and felt something inside him fold.

She was a woman he loved who was standing in front of him, hurting, and he had been so desperate to keep her that he hadn’t realised how frightened she had become of what keeping her might cost.

He moved towards her slowly.

Kylie watched him approach, her breathing unsteady.

He stopped in front of her. "I’m sorry, Kylie."

Her lips trembled. "Christian..."

"I’m sorry I brought the internet to you." His voice cracked. "I’m sorry I told myself I was protecting you when I was really just afraid of what would happen if I let you face it without me controlling the situation."

He shook his head. "I thought if I could take the pain away before it reached you, I could make everything all right."

His eyes burned. A tear slipped down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away. "And I’m so sorry."

Kylie stared at him. She had never seen him like this.

Never seen him standing in front of her with tears in his eyes, his voice breaking beneath the weight of words he could no longer force himself to keep inside.

"Christian," she whispered again.

He looked at her as though the sound of his name in her voice was the only thing keeping him standing.

"I love you."

Her face crumpled.

He shook his head quickly, as if he needed to make something clear before she mistook the words for another demand.

"You don’t have to say it back. You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t have to decide anything about us today." His breath caught. "I just need you to know that I’m sorry. Not because you might leave me. Not because I want you to change your mind."

He looked down for a moment, gathering himself. "I’m sorry that I hurt you."

The silence that followed was unbearable.

Kylie pressed her lips together, trying to stop them from trembling.

"I’m not the person you would want beside you, Christian."

He went still.

She looked away, her tears falling faster now.

"Look at what has happened since you met me. Your mother hates me. Your engagement is over. Your family is furious with you. The entire country is talking about us, and people are saying the most horrible things about me."

Her voice grew smaller.

"And now you’ve given up everything."

Christian’s eyes filled again. "Kylie—"

"No, listen to me." She looked back at him, desperate for him to understand. "You could have had a woman who fitted into your world. Someone your mother would approve of. Someone who wouldn’t bring this much trouble into your life."

He stared at her.

"You could have had someone who knew how to behave at those ridiculous dinners you all attend."

A broken laugh escaped her through her tears.

"Someone who didn’t argue with you about everything. Someone who didn’t have strangers digging through her past. Someone who didn’t come with all this..."

She gestured helplessly around herself.

"All this baggage."

Christian’s expression changed. With a kind of grief that made her wish she had never spoken.

She blinked.

"Don’t call yourself that."

"Christian—"

"No." His voice was barely above a whisper, but it stopped her. "Never say that again."

He looked at her as though he couldn’t bear to hear her reduce herself to the very things other people had used to hurt her.

"You are not baggage, Kylie."

She shook her head, crying.

He drew a shaky breath.

"You think I wanted someone who would sit quietly beside me at those dinners? Someone who would smile at the right people and never tell me when I’m being silly?"

A tear slid down his cheek.

"God, Blue. I have spent my entire life surrounded by people who told me what I wanted to hear."

His voice faltered.

"You were the first person who looked at me and didn’t care who my family was. You laughed at me when I deserved it. You called me out when I was being insufferable, and you never once made me feel like I had to earn the right to be a person outside my name."

He shook his head.

"You think I want someone easier?" His lips trembled. "I don’t want it to be easier. I want you."

Kylie made a small, wounded sound.

"And I know that doesn’t mean you owe me anything," he continued quickly. "I know loving you doesn’t give me the right to ask you to stay when you want to leave."

He looked down at his hands.

"But I need you to understand something." His voice dropped. "I didn’t give up my name for you to pay me back with your love."