Where the Sun Hides (Seasons of Betrayal #1)(92)

“Don’t blame me. It wasn’t just me.”

Kaz let out a short, dry laugh. “Oh, Violet. I don’t blame you for very damn much. Some things, yes, but not this mess.”

Violet wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but his posture softened and that calm mask fell away. He was in no better shape than her, and that left her lost.

Because she was okay to panic.

Kaz would stay calm.

She could rage.

He wouldn’t.

This wasn’t right at all.

“I’m sorry,” Violet said.

“God, for what?” Kaz asked.

“I don’t know. Assuming, I guess.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

Violet wrapped an arm around her middle, feeling like she just needed to hold herself together in a different way or she was going to fall apart all over the f*cking floor. “But you do blame me for something.”

Kaz shook his head, letting out a hard breath. “Don’t do that, either.”

“Well, you said it.”

“You’re looking into something that’s not there—seeing it all wrong.”

“You said it!”

Kaz crossed the space between them in a flash, grabbing her waist with one hand, her jaw with the other, and pulling her close. With no warning, he closed that little bit of distance too, kissing her hard and fast, letting her find that familiar heat of his and how it soothed her like nothing else.

Violet sucked in a ragged breath when Kaz finally pulled away, rested his forehead to hers, and stroked her cheek with his thumb.

“I don’t blame you for this mess,” he said again, his tone much softer than she’d heard him speak before.

And maybe she knew it then …

What Vera had meant on the doorstep.

It was … like that for them.

“I blame you for being you,” Kaz murmured. “And who you are made it so easy for me to love you. And I blame you entirely for that.”

Violet felt a sliver of wetness escape from the corner of her eye, but Kaz quickly swiped it away with the next stroke of his thumb.

“You shouldn’t cry when someone tells you they love you,” he said.

“Should you cry if you’re just figuring out that you love them, too?”

Kaz smiled. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.”

“Yeah, me either.”

She still wasn’t sure if it was going to end well for them.

And that colored everything that should have been beautiful a little black.





Violet fingered the soft detailing on the silver comforter as Kaz paced the length of the spare bedroom.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“I’m thinking,” he replied. “You’re …”

“What?”

“Helping.”

Violet scoffed. “By sitting here?”

Kaz’s pacing stopped abruptly. “Yes.”

“That doesn’t seem very helpful of me, Kaz.”

“You don’t seem to understand the importance of your presence. That, or you undervalue it a lot more than you should. And I partly blame that on your father because clearly he has it stuck in your head that your only use is to be pleasing and to his standards.”

Violet didn’t deny what he said.

It was true.

It just took her a while to see it, too.

“It might help if, instead of telling me why I am this way—something I already know, thanks—you could try explaining why I help you by just being here.”

Kaz’s icy gaze melted a bit. “I said that wrong, no?”

Violet shrugged. “Maybe just the wrong way.”

Instantly, he moved toward her, dropping down into a crouch, his hands finding her bare knees. After yet another snapping match between him and Vera, his sister had pointed out that she had a spare bedroom—if they wanted to use it—but that they needed to figure something else out and soon. Violet, wanting to get back into her safe place for at least a little while, had stripped out of her clothes and snagged Kaz’s shirt when he had jumped into the shower.

“You help me,” he started to say, “because even if you distract me a great deal of the time, that also means I’m focusing on only you. And right now, that’s where I need to focus. On you, Violet.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it?”

“If it’s what you want, then whatever.”

She didn’t have to pretend to understand him to love him. It just … was.

Kaz chuckled, and then leaned forward, resting his head on her lap. She trailed her fingers through his hair, taking that silent moment as there didn’t seem to be nearly enough of them.

“You’re one of my earliest memories,” Kaz said.

Violet’s fingers stilled. “What?”

“That day in the graveyard when you were four and I was ten. I have other memories of being younger than that, but that one day is so clear for me, above all the rest. I couldn’t see a thing, not good enough for it to be worth mentioning, anyway.”

“And what?”

“There’s no fuzziness around it. I remember things surrounding that day, and even going to the graveyard. But nothing was quite as clear and as bright as you. Everything was hiding from me in a way, because I couldn’t see it. I saw the sun that day, Violet, and it was you.”