The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)(92)

“He didn’t do anything. It was me!” Della yelled through clenched fingers. “Leave. Go away. You’re only making it worse!”

Cassie ignored her wishes, running toward her and sliding to a stop beside her.

I backed away, unable to stop the sensation of waking up to kissing my little Della. Unable to stop the repeat of her taste and touch and the dream and the wondrous feeling of finding everything precious, only to lose it in a heartbeat.

The exquisite joy of my dream was now crushed beneath utter despair.

I couldn’t breathe beneath the weight of it.

I couldn’t exist beneath the horror of it.

How could she do this?

How could she break me so spectacularly after everything I’d sacrificed? After every year I’d given her. After every milestone and accomplishment I’d shared with her? I fucking loved her, and this was how she repaid me? By killing me with a simple kiss.

A kiss that could never be permitted.

A kiss that was as dirty and dangerous as everything monstrous and evil.

Cassie locked her fingers around Della’s wrists, forcing her to remove her hands and stare into her distraught, blotchy face. “Tell me what happened.”

Della cried harder.

Cassie’s gaze met mine. “Or you tell me. Someone better. Otherwise, I’m calling my father.”

Della squirmed, trying to get out of her hold. “No, don’t call him. Please!”

“You better tell me what happened then. Right now.”

Her scolding worked, and Della’s bottom lip wobbled with confession. “I kissed him. I-I did what you said and only kissed the boy I loved with all my heart.”

Cassie fell back, ripping her hands from Della the same way I had. Her own heartbreak shattered all over her face as she looked back at me.

I couldn’t do a thing but stand there with my head shaking and my hands opening and closing in helplessness.

“Is that true?” she breathed. “Did you kiss your baby sister?” Loathsome disgust painted her features. She switched from happy-go-lucky Cassie to judge and executioner. “What sort of fucking pervert are you? You let her kiss you? Are you insane? What the fuck else do you do in that one bedroom, huh?” She climbed to her feet, stalking me, backing me into a stable. “Have you fucked her, Ren? Is that why you won’t like me? I’m too old for you? All this time, you’ve been sleeping with someone half your age. Someone who shares your blood?!” She dry heaved as she slammed the stable door with me inside and slammed the lock home. “Don’t fucking move, you sick, twisted asshole. I’m getting my father.”

The fact that I stood there, locked in place even as Cassie flew from the stable was a testament to how wonderfully Della had crushed me.

I had no energy to fight for my own freedom.

I had no ability to argue my defence so John Wilson wouldn’t call the police for suspected incest and child abuse.

I just stood there, staring at Della on the floor.

Begging her silently to fix this.

To rewind time and never do what she did.

“Ren…” she murmured between thick tears. “I’m so, so sorry.” She stood and wobbled toward me, grabbing the locked partition between us for support.

I backed away, deeper into the stable until the hay net stopped my retreat. “Don’t come near me.”

The desolate brokenness on her face matched the caving, crumbling destruction inside me, and we stood staring, silently cursing, painfully accepting that this was it.

There was no turning back from this.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Somehow, her wounded voice snapped me from my stupor, and I charged forward. Reaching over, I unbolted the lock and stepped as far away from her as possible.

I might not have anything to say in my defence, but I had plenty to say on behalf of Della’s. I should never have returned that kiss. I should never have given in. Dream excuse or not, I should’ve known better. I should never have let her believe such boundaries could be crossed. I should never have encouraged hugs and kisses and affection.

This was my fault, not hers.

And if anyone was going to be punished, it was me.

John had to know the truth, and he had to know it now before the police came to take me away. Before they found out I was the runaway who stole a baby named Della Mclary. Before they found out I was a criminal who’d kissed that stolen child. Before they found out my past as a slave and knitted my sad sorry tale together and the newspapers wrote fiction, lamenting that anyone who’d been sold and forced into labour before he was ten years old was bound to have issues. That it was only natural for his story to end with him in jail for molesting the very same kid he stole.

I was understandable.

I was a statistic.

Della was not.

She was so many things.

So many wonderful things.

But she was no longer mine.

We were no longer Ren and Della.

No longer fake brother and sister.

No longer the Wilds.

Backing away from her, I grunted around my fury and grief, “Go back to bed, Della. I need to fix this.”

I left her in the stables, crying and beautiful and perfectly screwed up from my lack of skills as a parent. I’d been the one to break her. I was the one to muddle her mind and make her think kissing me was appropriate.