Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
But when the shirt settled around his shoulders, there was only the tensed line of Brendan’s back, that neutral barrier making him completely impenetrable.
Cillian swallowed, struggling to pull himself together.
“Fuck you,” he said, because right now he couldn’t—couldn’t think anything else, not when he hurt all over and even worse was that he’d be feeling Brendan, the way the man had touched him, given him exactly what he wanted, for days. “God, I’m…I’m the worst, falling in love with someone like you.”
“You aren’t. I promise you aren’t.” A touch of gentleness, acceptance, but that was just salt on the wound. “And one day you’ll love someone who actually deserves it.”
You deserve it, Cillian wanted to cry. You just don’t want it.
He really was too naïve.
He took a stumbling step backward. “I can’t, I—”
Fuck.
His soul was cracking.
Words were wasted.
And he couldn’t stay here, looking at that impassive distance he would never cross again; maybe never had, deceiving himself the entire time that those quiet, intimate moments had ever held anything real.
He didn’t want for Brendan to say anything else. No more patient words, no more so-called “wisdom” putting Brendan so far out of his reach, where Brendan could be safe and untouchable and just…just…
No.
Cillian turned away, shutting himself off from that last glimpse of Brendan, motionless in the firelight.
And fled from the room, pelting out into the halls and letting this cold, empty castle that was his prison completely swallow him whole.
l
BRENDAN SAT ON THE EDGE of his bed for some time after Cillian left, his face buried in his hands, his chest heaving roughly.
I know this isn’t forever.
But I fell for you anyway.
Fuck. Fuck, his breaths rasped hard, and he dragged at his hair, pushing himself upright, head rolling back to stare blankly at the ceiling.
Why had he said those things?
Why had he just…shut down on Cillian that way?
Because he was right about me. Every word.
Because why did he say it?
Why did he say it at all, when in the end he’s the one leaving?
Leaving. Running away from his life, his career, to fulfill a duty Brendan couldn’t even blame Cillian for when he understood choosing family over yourself, even if it hurt. But deep down, he…
Brendan was almost angry.
That—what they had done just now, the way they’d tangled together, the violence of it, the raw potent energy, had been so much more than sexual when the brutality was just window dressing, layered atop something deep. Something emotional. Something Brendan had never felt in his life, threading this connection between him and Cillian as if someone had excised their hearts and surgically stitched them together. His own heart hurt, as if he could still feel the bleeding puncture wounds where those fresh-stitched threads had been ripped free as Cillian had run from him.
But Brendan was the one who’d torn them apart.
He buried his face in his hands.
Cillian had bound Brendan up like this when he was leaving, when he always intended to leave, saying those words when he’d always known he would have to take them back, take them away, leave Brendan behind. But it wasn’t Cillian Brendan was angry at, for that.
It was himself.
He was angry with himself for…for…
For wanting them.
When he knew better.
Wanting something he couldn’t have…and when faced with it, he thrust it away. Thrust him away, crushing those defensive walls right down on top of Cillian, and Brendan didn’t know if there was any way he could take it back.
Fuck. He’d have to wake up tomorrow, and go down there to continue filming with Cillian like nothing had happened.
He couldn’t fucking stand it. He’d do it anyway. He’d be a professional tomorrow, put his job first.
But tonight he needed to find his way into a drink.
He stood—then stopped as something dislodged from the tangled sheets and tumbled down to the floor, landing in a shush of pages. Frowning, he bent and picked up the script. HOW TO LOVE A CACTUS – SOPHIE LING.
Cillian must have brought this.
Brendan threw it onto the nightstand, and turned away.
He’d give it back later.
For right now, he just needed to do anything else but stay inside this cold and constricting castle where Brendan…
Brendan had never felt more like he didn’t belong.
Like there was nothing for him out there, and he’d somehow made himself into a creature who didn’t…who didn’t…
Who didn’t know anything but how to be alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
LAST DAY OF PROPER FILMING.
And Brendan had never seen Cillian perform more beautifully.
Something had ignited inside him since that night, something that lit him up from the inside out, and he blazed so bright he dominated every scene with ringing emotion; with heartrending passion; with complete commitment to the role of Richard Kerrington.
Almost as if it was easier to hide inside Richard than it was for Cillian to be himself.
They’d had few shots together, in the days after Brendan had chased Cillian from his life—a mercy, when every time Brendan was close to Cillian he wanted to pull him into his arms and take it back, but every time they weren’t speaking lines to each other Cillian glassed over and looked right through him.