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“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.” Rumi
It was always the same when the countess looked at me. She didn’t see her only child, a daughter to love, or a girl with earnest dreams. She only saw her shame. Her ruination. The reason she was exiled.
All I wanted was adventure and a pair of trousers.
He was the sea. Rough. Dangerous. Dependable. No matter how far he traveled or how long he stayed away, he always returned to me.
“Unhand me, sir.” I thrashed, trying to dislodge his immovable grasp. “Do it now, or I’ll lop off the dull, inanimate fellow between your legs.”
A rakish smile stole across his lips. “The name’s Charles Vane.”
There was only so much suffering a person could endure before they broke. Sometimes, broken things couldn’t be put back together.
My heart died a thousand deaths before I found my voice. “Priest.” “Bennett, my love.” He spilled the endearment into the air, each syllable a vicious growl of torment. “How I’ve missed my beautiful, infuriating wife.”
“You promised him I would be a man of his fortitude and spirit. A man who loves you above all else. Only you. And we shall be blinded by our love for life and beyond the ends of the sea.”
“It doesn’t matter how far we fall, how much pain we inflict, or how dark it becomes in the ruin. I’m going to be with you, waiting for you, loving you, forgiving you. I’m never letting go, Bennett. Never.”
“I can’t seem to make sense of you.” “It’s easy, Commodore. Just think of the smartest man you know, remove all the hauteur and bigotry, and add a larger pair of testicles.”
Exquisite. Flawless. Mercy God, I truly had a weakness for cruelty wrapped in a beautiful package.
“Love isn’t a decision. It arrives unannounced, breeds madness, and leaves a sea of ruin in its wake. Hate him or love him. Either way, he’s in certain hell.”
Terrible things were about to happen, for he wasn’t angry. He was deeply, spectacularly, viciously enraged.
He looked like a pirate prince. Elegantly masculine. Strikingly confident. Gorgeously male.
Love had hunted me, captured me, bred madness, and yes, it left a sea of ruin in its wake. But the devastation washed away. The skies cleared, and now we were calm, free, sailing on the winds of our hard-won peace.
Love prevailed, not in the windless calm of life, but in the ruin.
