Clearly relieved to move past that topic, Sevastyan said, “We had no relatives, so they remained at the manor, with conservators brought in to arrange for their upbringing. I stayed away, fearing prosecution, but also because I look so much like my father, more with every year. I wanted to spare them the sight of me. I didn’t know until years later that Maksim had convinced the authorities that he and Dmitri had witnessed our drunken father’s fall, and that their older brother was missing because I’d become crazed with grief. Even then, Maksim could spin a tale like no other.”

Fondness for his brother had crept into Sevastyan’s tone, at odds with the chilliness between them earlier.

“I thought I had saved my brothers from an abusive tyrant, that they’d be free. At least I could wear that badge.” He clasped his forehead. “Yet just this week, Maksim admitted to me that the caretakers who came in to raise him and Dmitri were . . . worse than our father.”

“How?” I asked, but I could guess. His brothers had been abused, just as Sevastyan had—as if that was always going to be their fate, no matter what they did or how much they fought it.

“I won’t speak more about it, because that’s not my secret to tell.”

I recalled that day of the museum when he’d returned to the town house. He’d said nothing to me, just wrapped his arms around me as if I were the only thing keeping him afloat. Had he just learned of this from Maksim?

“I understand, Sevastyan. But you can’t take the blame for that. You were just twelve—you couldn’t have known.”

“I abandoned them. That’s how they see it, and they hate me for it. Maksim less than Dmitri, because he remembers me more. But deep down, they both want me to suffer for their fates. Why would I ever want to reveal my family to you, when I know they despise me?”

“I don’t care how anyone else feels about you.”

“Would you not? I didn’t want anything to affect your opinion of me. Sometimes you look at me as if I’m some sort of hero. I can’t explain . . . there’s no explaining what that feels like to me.” The look of longing on his face gave me an idea. “What would happen if you found out that most of my life has been everything unheroic? What if you discovered that I’m hated—and that I hate myself for every time I lost?”

He moved closer to me, shaving off the distance, and I wanted him to.

“Then, after finally managing to win—in work, in life—I was losing you.”

Not trusting myself to speak, I offered him my hand.

He stared at it in disbelief, then all but lunged for it. He absently took my other hand and began warming them between his own. Because they were cold.

At length, I said, “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

“You aren’t disgusted with me?”

“Of course not.” I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but I thought this moment was too tenuous. “With your father, you acted in self-defense. I think things got mixed up for you because you were so young.” Over time, his mind must have confused his memories, guilt overwhelming the reality of that night: if he hadn’t protected himself, he would have died. “You didn’t have a choice.”

“Every day, I look in the mirror—and my father stares back.”

“You’re nothing like him,” I said vehemently.

He scowled at me. “How can you say that when you tell me you don’t know me?”

“Would your father have harbored this guilt for nearly two decades? Would he hate himself for things he had absolutely no control over?”

Sevastyan swallowed. “And what about the other . . . ?”

“I’m just grateful you survived. I’m grateful you told me.”

He looked like he seethed with emotion. “You can’t expect me to believe that you’re willingly here with me after I confessed what I did—and what was done to me. Much less because I confessed it!”

“You have to believe it, because it’s true. What I know of you only binds me to you more.”

He fell silent for what seemed like an eternity.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, Sevastyan. What you’re feeling.”

“Feeling?” He made a caustic sound. “You’ve just felled me. No, you’ve slain me. I’ll never want another, yet you were ready to give up on me.” He dropped my hands, his ire mounting. “You can’t think that all this is random! Paxán found me all those years ago. Across the world, you somehow found him, and then he sent me to you. At any point, you could have been lost to me.”

Sevastyan had told me in the banya that we were inevitable. Now I realized why he believed that.

Now I did too.

He reached out to grip my upper arms. “I went through my entire life, never knowing that I was starving for this beautiful, brilliant redhead. Then I saw her. I watched her. All the while, she had no idea that she went about her days and tormented me every one of them.”

I gasped. “Sevastyan . . .”

“The first time I saw you, you nearly put me to my knees. I wanted to invade your thoughts as totally as you had mine. When I did manage to sleep, I’d dream of you and wake up f**king the sheets.” His grip grew harsher, as if someone were trying to take me away from him. “I’d will you to look at me. And then, in that bar, you did. You showed interest in me, and amazingly Paxán approved the match. All he asked was that I give you time.” He released my shoulders to pace. “Time—while goddamned Filip moved in on my woman!”