Chapter 85: Not Quite Midnight, Cinderella
Merlina sucked in a breath like he’d struck her. Not because of the harshness of the words, but because of the truth in them.
Craig wasn’t Conor. And that was the problem. She knew it too well. Too intimately.
They were brothers, but that truth had never stopped her from slipping. From letting Craig in. From dropping her guard too soon, too easily.
She kept forgetting.
Forgetting who his brother was. Forgetting why she came to Belford in the first place.
Since day one, Craig had been a distraction, quiet and consuming. And not once, not when she found out he had a girlfriend, not when the darkest truths clawed their way to the surface, not even when she found about the affair—did her feelings stop.
They didn’t run. They didn’t retreat. Nothing was strong enough to shake him out of her heart.
And that terrified her.
Because she had tried. God, she had tried to kill whatever it was that kept pulling her back to him. Tried to drown it with logic and facts and whispered reminders spoken like prayers, hoping her heart would finally listen.
But it never did.
She told herself he was just like Conor. But he wasn’t. And that truth stung more than the lie ever did.