---- Chapter 17 Killian POV: | watched them walk away, her hand resting gently on his arm, her face etched with a concern that used to be reserved only for me. The sight was a blade twisting in my gut, a pain far sharper than any of the punches Josiah had landed. | had imagined this moment a thousand times over the past few months. | would find her. | would fall to my knees. | would beg and plead and grovel. And she would cry, and she would scream, but eventually, she would forgive me. Because she was my Emily. She always forgave me. | had never, in my wildest nightmares, imagined a scenario where she simply... didn't care. Her indifference was a poison for which there was no antidote. It seeped into my veins, cold and paralyzing. She hadn't looked at me with hatred. Hatred would have been better. Hatred meant there was still passion, still a fire to be rekindled. She had looked at me with nothing. A complete and utter void. My mind flashed back to the car crash. To the moment | had chosen Dallas, leaving Emily to bleed in the wreckage. | had felt a flicker of guilt then, but | had justified it. It was tactical. It was logical. ---- Now, tasting the bitter pill of being the one left behind, the one not chosen, | finally understood. It wasn't tactical. It was a betrayal of the soul. And she was never going to forgive me for it. Emily POV: The emergency room doctor confirmed it was just a deep contusion, strapping Josiah's arm into a sling and prescribing test. The whole time, | was a bundle of nerves, my stomach churning with guilt. "I'm so sorry, Josiah," | said as we sat in the sterile waiting room. "This is all my fault. He's crazy. He'll come after you, after your business. You should stay away from me. It's not safe for you." "Emily," he said, his voice firm, cutting through my panicked rambling. He turned to face me, his good hand gently tilting my chin up so | had to meet his gaze. "l am not going anywhere." He took a deep breath, his kind eyes searching mine. "I'm in love with you," he said, the words simple, direct, and utterly flooring. "| think | have been since we were seventeen." The world seemed to tilt on its axis. "What?" "| know," he said with a small, self-deprecating smile. "The timing is terrible. But seeing him... seeing him put his hands on you... | realized I've already wasted eight years by being a ---- coward. I'm not going to waste another minute." His earlobes were turning a faint shade of pink, but his gaze never wavered. "| noticed you because you were the only one who could ever beat me in calculus," he confessed. "| was annoyed at first, and then | was intrigued. And then, one day, | looked up from my textbook and saw you laughing with a friend in the library, and it was like... the whole world shifted. | couldn't look away." | had always assumed he saw me as a rival, an academic competitor. The thought that he had seen me as anything more had never even crossed my mind. "When you texted me," he continued, his voice growing softer, "my heart just about beat out of my chest. It was the best and worst moment of my life. | was so happy to hear from you, but | knew. | knew you would only ever reach out to me if you were in the deepest kind of trouble. If he had shattered you completely." A lump formed in my throat. My heart, a cold, dead thing for so long, gave a painful, hesitant flutter. | looked away, unable to handle the raw sincerity in his eyes. "Emily," he said, his voice gentle but insistent. "Losing you the first time was the biggest regret of my life. | am not going to let him, or anyone, scare me away from you again. | am not making that mistake twice."