She recoiled, and her own face darkened a shade. With her free hand on her hip, her eyes smoldered with a damp passion. “You’re not a monster, Henry. And yes, I’m calling you that, because Henry’s your name and I think we’re past the point of formal regards.”
“Are you blind!” he shouted, his eyes bulging. “I am a monster. That’s what I am! You’ve seen what I can do, what instincts I have to fight.”
“But you do fight them.” Her eyes appeared sadder than he’d ever seen, and it was just enough to lower his shoulders, just enough to lower his heart rate ever so slightly. She shook her head, her voice soft. “I wish you could see, for just a second, what I see when I look into your eyes. Yours and his.”
“Yeah?” he asked tiredly. “And what do you see?”
“I see a man who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, a man who lives every day under the pressure of his past mistakes. I see a man who, for longer than a lifetime, has suffered for something he doesn’t deserve. I see a man, not a monster.” She neared. “I see a beautiful soul. You deserve happiness, Henry.”
He huffed and looked away, even through the heavy heat in his heart—the kind that clashed with the rage he now had to dig inside himself to find. “You couldn’t possibly know…”
“I don’t have to know. But your past doesn’t make you who you are.”
His short laugh of disbelief made another wave of nausea take his breath. “On the contrary. My past has made me exactly what I am.”
“I said it doesn’t make you who you are.”
“Sorry,” he sarcastically retorted. “My past has made me exactly who I am.”
“Then why don’t I see it?”
“Because you’re someone who can find beauty in a dandelion.” Even he heard the offense in his voice, despite the fact that it was one of the very things he loved about her.
“And I see it in you, too. I will always see it, no matter how much you try to hate me.”
“Ms. Ashton,” he said, bringing a hand to his eyes while leaning against the back of the couch. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop hiding from me. Stop viewing me as a threat.” Her voice was so desperate that he opened his eyes. Hers welled with the desire of her words, and he wanted so badly to give her what she wanted. “I want you. The real you—the one I know at nighttime and the one who kissed me. The one who really sees me. Because that side of you isn’t afraid of me. That side of you knows me.” She paused. “Let me love you, Henry.”
He sank to the couch, his legs still trembling, and all he could do was shake his head at the way his heart felt pierced by numerous hooks, then pulled in every direction. It was a pain unlike the rest, and he didn’t understand. How badly he wanted to be the man she spoke of—how badly he ached for it—but he was saving her, and him, from the day when she would finally wake up and realize what he was.
She sounded nervous, even unsure, when she said, “If…if you don’t feel anything for me, then I accept that, and I’ll walk out and never bother you again. But if you do, I—”
“No,” he shook his head. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t deserve it!” Bracing himself, he shot to his feet again, and he couldn’t be formal anymore, didn’t want to. “Dammit, Elizabeth! I don’t deserve your love. No man is worthy of it, as far as I’m concerned, so how could I ever be?”
With tight lips, she fought the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “Stop speaking of me as though I’m perfect. You, of all people, know I’m not. You’ve seen my dark side!”
“Dark side?” He nearly laughed. “You mean your human side?”
“I’m no more human than you. You know what I’ve done, what I did before I came—”
“We’ve already been through that. You did the best with what you were given.”
“And so did you,” she said without missing a beat. “Henry, you still accepted me after I almost lost it on Brian, and even after I told you how I got here. It’s time for you to let me accept you.”
He shook his head and glanced at Arne, who appeared to be moved and livid at the same time. “Did Arne tell you the kind of man I was, Elizabeth?”
She hesitated. “No.”
“I think one of his most classic descriptions is ‘A good man who’d just lost his way.’”
“It’s the truth, is it not?” Arne said, speaking for the first time in a long while and meeting Henry’s eyes just as fiercely. “And it was in one thing only you lost your way.”
“That one thing is what I was judged on. The rest doesn’t matter.”
Arne looked to be on the verge of laughter. “Doesn’t matter? Since when does helping the needy—and saving thousands of jobs your father almost cut before you saved the company, mind you—not matter?” He looked to Elizabeth before Henry could respond. “For your information, dear Elizabeth, Henry had a bigger heart than anyone I’d ever known, and still does. It was why I started working for him in the first place, after his father passed away.”
Henry groaned through his teeth, ignoring him. Instead, he closed in on Elizabeth. She kept the blanket over her while folding her arms, staring up at him in the defiant way that was her own. “The women, did he mention them—the ones whose names I don’t even remember?”
“No,” she said again.
He looked her squarely in the eyes, telling himself not to waver as he said: “I slept with too many to count. A new one nearly every night—some who even felt I took it too far. I had no rules, nor did I give thought to the occasional wedding rings some women tried to hide. I hardly batted an eye as I used them and sent them away. Raw, meaningless passion.” She faltered only slightly, but the way she swallowed and blinked said it had been hard for her to hear—just like he’d intended it to be. “You might want to be with me despite the fact that I’m a monster, but can you honestly say you still want me after that? After you know just one of the many reasons I am one?”
“You’ve hidden your whole life,” she said instead of answering. “And you’ve done a damn good job at fooling everyone. Even before your curse. But that person you’re portraying—before and now—isn’t you. You need to forgive yourself, let it go.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know enough. I know you’ve made mistakes. But you do have a heart, like Arne said. I haven’t been fooled, Henry. I’ve seen it, from the very first night I was here and during the fleeting moments you let me in. And it’s infuriating that you can’t see it—that you’re not willing to!”
He sighed, so ready to give in. Closing his eyes, he again brought his fingers to his eyes. “I,” he started tiredly, softly. “Thank you for saving me, Elizabeth. I mean that. But…you shouldn’t have.”
“Henry…” she breathed.
He was about to speak again, but something caught his eye. It wasn’t even the t-shirt she wore, which he just noticed for the first time was one of his own. It was the blanket she kept over herself. She was hiding something. Avoiding questions all together, he pulled it off of her, too quickly for her to take hold of it, and she clutched the air. Her entire forearm was bandaged, from elbow to wrist, the white cloth failing to hide three bloody streaks. Rage boiled inside him, cooking his blood, his heart. As he stared, chest heaving, he said, “I…did this?” He felt sick, and his knees almost buckled.
“It was an accident,” she said cautiously. “When the poison—”
“You tried to hide this from me?”
“Yes, for the same reason I didn’t want to tell you I knew. I was afraid you’d blame yourself. I didn’t want to lose you.”
He brought a hand to his head. Everything spun, even her and the red on her arm.