hadn’t wanted him to come with her in the first place. Extending the goodbye for all these hours, and up until these last moments, had been brutal, for both of them.
But he couldn’t let her out of his sight before he saw her safe inside her family home. Only his overpowering reluctance now let her walk to their door on her own, rolling the single suitcase she’d packed from the innumerable things he’d bought her.
He sat in the car watching her go, paralyzed, unable to move a muscle or make a sound to stop her.
Knowing he shouldn’t stop her.
All he could do was cling to her every nuance as she rummaged shakily for her house keys. She hadn’t told her parents she was coming home, didn’t even ring the bell. She probably didn’t want to hurt him with the sight of her family receiving her in tearful welcome, when she thought his hang-ups stemmed from having no family of his own.
Her consideration tore at him all over again, her every move as she fumbled to open the door more slashes to his bleeding psyche. Then without a last look, she stumbled in and closed the door.
The moment she did, Ivan felt his heart being crushed. Literally. What else explained that stab that sank into his heart, making him lurch forward, his head shaking on the steering wheel and his lungs tightening on what felt like broken glass?
Giving in to the agony, he almost wished that it was a real heart attack, and that it wouldn’t spare him. Almost. He couldn’t wish for his life to end as long as Anastasia existed. As long as she needed him. As he knew she did.
But she needed more than him to complete her healing. She needed to resume her life. He’d tried to put that moment off for as long as he could, plying all his diversion tactics to postpone it. But even before she’d confronted him yesterday he’d already known. If he loved her, he should let her go.
And how he loved her.
He’d long admitted to himself that the all-consuming feeling that had blossomed into life from their first meeting and had only intensified as he’d gotten to know her, was love.
No. Far more than love. He now fully knew what his brothers, Antonio, Rafael, Raiden and Numair, even Richard, felt for their soul mates. This absolute admiration and allegiance, this endless desire and devotion. And he wanted with her what they had with them.
Union, children, permanence. Everything.
But that also meant being in extreme proximity with his own family, since they were a close and constant part of her life.
In her efforts to convince him that going back home, reentering her family’s life wouldn’t impact him or their relationship, she’d as good as pledged he didn’t have to see any of them. But he knew this was impossible. How could he make her live in this abnormal state, torn between him and those who’d raised her? How could he force her to split herself in two, part for him and part for them, keeping the two halves separate, with her contentment lost in the middle?
He couldn’t. He’d taken her away knowing it was best for her. He shouldn’t have pressured her to remain in isolation with him the moment he’d realized it was no longer the case.
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