“Please.”
And then he was slowly but firmly pulling her hands away, and she started to cry when she realized there was nothing she could do.
“PLEASE—-”
Inch by inch, he saw her carved-up face—-
“How many times will you make me beg—-” Her voice cracked.
And it was the most painfully beautiful thing he had ever seen.
His eyes burned with hers.
His heart bled with her.
And his soul wept with her.
“Fawn.” His own voice broke, and the prince’s voice turned into a strained whisper. “Fawn. Fawn. Fawn – I love you.”
Her tears fell faster, making her scars glisten with vicious vividness.
“I have loved you from the very start.”
She shook her head at him, silent in her despair, and his voice became desperate. “Meredith Grayson was wrong. I was wrong.”
But still she cried, and still her eyes told him hope no longer existed in her.
His fingers tightened around her wrists. It was almost as if he could feel her slipping away from him, and the thought made him say in a low, driven tone, “I was lying to myself the whole time. The entire time I kept pushing you away, I kept telling myself that it was for your sake, when all along...it was for my sake. I was pushing you away because you reached the part of me that not even the people who died for me—-” He sucked his breath. “My parents. Georgie. I owed my life to them, Fawn. My life. But Dio, angel, what I feel for them is nothing compared to how I feel for you.”
He brought her hands to his chest, letting her feel the frantic beat of his heart.
“I love you. I have always loved you. And I will always love you.”
The prince’s words made Fawn shudder.
“I love you, Fawn.”
“I love you, angel.”
And she could no longer stop weeping.
Her head fell.
“How?” she asked brokenly. “H-how can I believe you when I—-”
The prince started to tip her chin up.
“No!” Panic seized her, and Fawn tried to pull away, but the prince was too strong, and soon he had forced her to look at him again, her face completely exposed.
A sob escaped her. “Stop looking at me!”
“I can’t.” The prince’s voice was harsh. “Because I’ve never seen anything more beautiful—-”
“L-liar.”
The prince started to lower his head.
Oh God.
She cried out, trying to lean back, to shove him away, to keep him from reaching her—-
His lips touched the scar on her forehead.
She screamed.
His lips moved to the scar below her right eye.
“Nooooo—-”
And still he kissed her, every damn scar, and she screamed until she had no voice left.
When his lips finally left hers, she could only look at him, her eyes filled with self-revulsion, and his heart splintered at the sight of it.
“Oh God, Fawn—-”
“I’m ugly.” Her hands crept up to her face, and the tears started to spill again as she felt the mass of flesh under her fingers. “I’m ugly!” She wanted to tear the flesh from her own face, wanted everything to be new again. “I can’t stand this—-”
“I love you.” The prince caught her hands before her nails could dig into her own skin, forcing them down. “I love you.” His voice was fierce, his words a promise that the prince’s emerald green eyes willed her to believe. “I love you.”
Releasing her hands, he cupped her face.
“I love you.”
And then he was kissing her.
“Always, angel,” he whispered against her trembling lips. “Always.”
Their tears mingled.
Her pain was his pain.
And slowly, her arms went around his neck.
Dio.
He kissed her harder, his arms nearly crushing her in his embrace.
She never said the words back, but it was enough.
All he had wanted was a chance to love her again.
Epilogue
One year later
Fawn and the prince had just taken their seats on one of the tables in the café’s alfresco area when a mom with two young children paused in front of them, browsing the café’s menu on display.
Today was Family Day, a special school holiday that the university’s vice chairman Derek Christopoulos had established in order to encourage deeper bonds between students and their families. Among other things, the holiday allowed parents to explore the entire university while also doubling as a school fair, with student groups competing with each other to have the most profitable activity booth.
When Fawn noticed the little girl staring at her, she smiled, and the little girl said loudly, “Mommy, look.” Her mother glanced down at her, and the little girl pointed at the scar on Fawn’s forehead. “She looks like Harry Potter.”
Her older brother, who looked about ten, snorted. “No, dummy.” He pointed to the scar on Fawn’s cheek. “She looks more like Samurai X—-”
Turning red in mortification, the mother sent Fawn a look of apology before hurriedly dragging them away, whispering furiously to her children.
Fawn grimaced, and as soon as the family was out of earshot, the sound of the prince’s low, dark laugh filled the air. “You do look like both.”
She made a face. “You’re evil.” But the soft tender light in her brown eyes belied her words. It hadn’t been easy at all, she mused, to get to this point.
The first few months they had been together, she had barely been able to sleep, and there was rarely a night that she hadn’t woken up screaming, crying, her body bathed in cold sweat, her mind trapped in memories of her ordeal.
But always, the prince had been there, wiping her tears, and he would whisper to her over and over that he loved her until she would finally succumb to an exhausted sleep.
In those months, her moods had swung dangerously between depression and aggression, her pain lashing inward and outward. There were days when she would scream at him in front of other people – his parents, his friends, his colleagues – almost as if a part of her was just waiting for him to give up on her.
But he never did.
The prince had never once lost his temper with her, had never raised his voice to her, had never walked out on
