A Deal with Demakis(78)

                “I had to make this choice. This marriage is nothing but an agreement.”

                His jaw was tight like a vise, his cheekbones sticking out making him forbidden and stark. But Lexi wouldn’t back down. The hurt continued to splinter inside her as if there was no end to it. As if this moment needed to be entrenched inside her, as if she needed to be changed.

                Anger, red-hot and roiling, it was the only way to survive the moment and she clutched it to herself.

                Because if she didn’t, she would hear that voice inside her head. That little girl filled with hurt, filled with fear, the one that so desperately wanted to be loved.

                The only way to drown out that pathetic voice was to ride the storm of anger. “You think I can find solace in the fact that you’re ruining your life along with mine?”

                He shifted back, the expression in his eyes cycling from fury to desperation to a terrifying emptiness within seconds. “Don’t say another word,” he said through gritted teeth, every syllable bellowing around them.

                “I won’t stop.” She wiped her tears and looked up at him, her heart breaking in her chest. “You have no idea how much the very thought of leaving you terrifies me. I can’t breathe if I think about not seeing you ever again.” She covered the distance between them, and he braced himself as if she was a weapon that would cause him damage. She reached for his face, and he immediately bent his head, his gaze a glittering pool of anger and something else.

                Standing on her toes, she kissed his cheek, and he shuddered. Burying her face in his chest, she hugged him tight, learning and memorizing the scent and feel of him.

                “I’m petrified that I will never see you again, that I’ll never hear your voice again, never kiss you again. That no one will ever think me beautiful—” Her voice broke. “That no one will ever tell me to stand up for myself, that no one will ever think I’m extraordinary. I’ve never been more terrified that I’ll never be loved, Nikos.”

                She pressed another kiss on his palm, and looked up at him. The pain she saw in his eyes stole her breath, knuckled her so hard in the gut that she swayed. But she didn’t relent. She would say this to him, for herself. “I’m in love with you. I think I’ll always love you. If you weren’t so blinded by your ambition—”

                Pulling his hands from her, he stepped back, a vein pulsing in his temple. “I’ve told you things that I haven’t told anyone. This is not about ambition or greed. You have to understand...”

                She wanted to shake him; she wanted to hit him for not seeing the truth that was right in front of his eyes.

                “You still think this is victory over your father? Because it’s not.”

                He flinched. The flash of pain in his eyes would have stopped her before, but now, she was filled with pure fury. He had shown her what it was to live and then he wanted her to go right back to being half-alive.

                “This agreement you have made, it’s your victory over your fear that you are like him. Because you are, despite your every effort to not be. You are his son...you feel something for me.” She poked him in the chest. “You feel it here. You’re getting attached to me. And it terrifies you.

                “It terrifies you to realize that you might be exactly like your father, that you have the same weakness as he does, that if you let this small thing for me take root, if you accept it and let it grow, it will devour you from the inside, and that you will have no control over yourself.

                “And your grandfather offered you the best way to beat it back, to keep it in its place, didn’t he?”