Fake Daughter Is the Real Legend novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Thing He Never Said

Leander's POV

I told her I would see a doctor when she sat down.

She had not stopped moving since the boathouse.

She drove us back to the lake house with both hands white on the wheel.

Once inside she circled the kitchen, filling a basin and pulling out gauze.

"Sit," I said.

"You're bleeding on my floor."

"I'll bleed on it all night. Sit down, Marin."

She stood there with a dripping cloth in her fist.

Then she dropped onto the edge of the sofa as though her strings had been cut.

I sat next to her.

Her hands shook once, and she put them between her knees to hide it.

"You came in alone," I said.

"Yes."

"They had a rifle."

"I had a better plan."

I laughed, and my ribs punished me for it.

She cleaned my face then.

She was gentle and quick about it, and she did not say a word until the last cut was taped.

"I thought they'd killed you," she said.

I took the cloth out of her hand.

"There's something I've never told you," I said. "It's been in my mouth since the first morning."

She went still.

"A few weeks ago I walked into the kitchen at the estate and you were standing at the counter. You looked at me the way no one in that house had looked at me in six years."

"How?"

"Like I was a man, and not a door."

She didn't speak.

"I knew then that you weren't her," I said. "I don't know who you are, or where from. I never asked, and I won't. But I knew."

She was looking at me with her grey eyes wide open.

"I'm not a fool," I said. "I know what I'm saying. I fell for the woman who came after her, and I'd follow her anywhere she goes."

"Leander."

"That's the thing I never said."

She was across my lap before I finished, kissing me, and I was too slow to be careful of my ribs.

← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend