“I begged him,” he confessed, finally free of the truth he knew would make her hate him even more. “I begged him to leave her. I asked him for a favour. But there isn’t much he could take from me. So I gave him the only thing I could give him—the thing I would come to desire most. And he left her. The debt for her life paid in exchange for what I’d come to desire most.” He ran a hand over his eyes, feeling a painful sting burn across them. “I’d made a mistake in my calculations. I’d underestimated just how much she hated me and loved him.” A choked laughter sputtered out of him. “The moment
