Chapter 187: Painful Confession

Elara:

Kairo went completely still.

I watched him struggle with the answer, watched the conflict move across his face as though he desperately wanted to find a kinder truth to offer me.

For one fragile moment, I allowed myself to hope that he would deny it, that he would tell me his feelings had been too strong to ignore regardless of what he had discovered. But eventually, he lowered his gaze, and when he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. ℯℓ.

"No. If I’d known from the start, I would have kept my distance from you."

He might as well have slapped me.

The pain was so immediate that I forgot to breathe, my heart clenching as though his words had reached inside my chest and closed around it.

I had known Kairo could hurt me. I had experienced it firsthand. But there was something uniquely cruel about hearing him admit that, given the choice, he would never have allowed us to happen. That if he had possessed the knowledge he now carried, he would have walked away before I ever had the chance to discover what it felt like to be held by him, kissed by him, or stupid enough to believe I mattered to him.

I closed my eyes for a moment, gathering the scattered remnants of my composure. At least he was being honest. At least he wasn’t offering me another pretty lie to make himself feel better.

When I opened my eyes, the pain was still there, but my voice had softened into something almost empty. "Well, you know now, Kairo. You know the reason you can’t pursue whatever feelings you have for me. So you can keep your distance from me this time. You don’t need to hurt me again to make sure I understand."

He shook his head violently, and when I looked at him, the tears he had been struggling to hold back were finally gathering in his eyes.

"It’s not the same anymore, Elara," he whispered, his voice breaking around my name. "It isn’t the same because I already have feelings for you."

For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe. I simply stood there, staring at the man in front of me, wondering how one person could possibly leave me in so many pieces in a single evening.

First, he had told me that he couldn’t pursue his feelings for me because of some mysterious reason he refused to explain. Then, after watching the last fragile remnants of my hope crumble beneath his admission that he would have avoided me entirely had he known about it sooner, he had looked into my eyes and confessed that he already had feelings for me.

What was I supposed to do with that information? Smile? Cry? Thank him for finally acknowledging something I had desperately wished to hear before he had made me feel utterly disposable?

I had spent weeks convincing myself that the night we shared meant nothing to him, that I had been foolish to believe there was anything between us beyond attraction and a moment of weakness. Now he was telling me that I hadn’t imagined everything, that he had felt something too, and that none of it changed the fact that he still couldn’t be with me.

My eyes burned, but the tears refused to fall. Perhaps I had cried enough over him already, or perhaps some part of me had finally grown too exhausted to produce another tear for a man who couldn’t decide whether he wanted me in his life or not.

When I remained silent, Kairo stepped closer and placed his hands on my shoulders, his fingers trembling slightly against my bare skin. "Princess, please, you have to believe me. I do like you. More than I ever intended to, more than I know what to do with, and I know I have made a complete mess of everything between us."

His voice faltered, and I watched him struggle to swallow whatever emotion was threatening to overwhelm him. Then, with a choked sob that seemed to tear straight through his carefully maintained composure, he added, "But we still can’t be together."

Something inside me finally snapped. I looked at him, at the tears gathering in his gray eyes and the pain written across his face, and wondered whether he had any idea what he was asking of me.

Was I supposed to comfort him? Was I supposed to reassure him that I understood, that I would wait patiently while he fought whatever battle he refused to let me see? Was I supposed to be grateful that he cared enough to hurt me honestly instead of pretending he felt nothing?

"How many times are you going to hurt me, Kairo?" I asked, my voice so quiet that the question seemed to hang between us longer than it should have.

His expression changed immediately, and for the first time that evening, he looked at me as though he were truly seeing the damage he had done instead of concentrating on the pain he was feeling himself.

He opened his mouth, but I didn’t give him the chance to answer. I needed to say this now, before he could offer another explanation that would pull me back into the confusion I had been trying so desperately to escape.

"I understand now," I continued, looking directly at him. "I understand that you weren’t avoiding me because you were afraid I’d become clingy or try to turn that night into a relationship you never wanted. You were avoiding me because you found out something that made you believe you couldn’t pursue me. And you used Aria to push me away because, for whatever reason, you thought hurting me would be easier than telling me the truth."

My throat tightened, but I forced myself to keep going. "I understand that you regret what you did. I understand that you have feelings for me, too. And I understand that there’s some reason you can’t tell me about that makes you believe we can’t be together."

I paused, drawing a deep breath as his hands tightened fractionally on my shoulders. He was watching me with an expression of such desperate anticipation that I could almost see him holding his breath, waiting for me to say something that would make this easier for both of us. But there was no magical combination of words that could make his confession hurt less.

"So tell me, Kairo. What exactly do you want me to do?"