Except for asking Bobby to make herself comfortable while he prepared a late lunch for them, Leandro hadn’t spoken a word since they arrived at his place. He no longer lived at the dorm, having finished his degree back in Greece. But all the furniture from his old place had been moved here, making the place feel new and unbearably familiar at the same time.

Bittersweet memories assailed Bobby. She saw the 3D television mounted on the wall and thought of the time she had lost a bet with Leandro, giving him the right to record their lovemaking and then making Bobby watch it with him afterwards.

Gah!

Why did she have to remember that of all things?

Leandro looked up when Bobby suddenly appeared at the doorway of his kitchen. He frowned at the uneasy look on her face. “What is it?”

“I…” She fidgeted, not knowing how to ask her question.

He waved for her to come in and she took one of the stools opposite him. She watched silently as he unwrapped the foil cover from the container, which bore the name of a famous Italian restaurant. “Pasta?”

“Yes.” He opened the container, and the delicious scent of baked spaghetti filled the air. “Also, you’re beating around the bush.”

Bobby made a face. A part of her couldn’t believe they were bantering in the kitchen as if they were a married couple. But then, there was also this small shameful part of her that liked it. Too much so.

“Smartass,” she muttered under her breath.

Leandro raised a brow. “And you weren’t such a coward in the past. Did missing and loving me too much make you so?”

She glared at him. “Ego much?”

“Still beating----”

“I just want to know what you did with our video.” The words tumbled out of her mouth so fast she wondered if he understood her.

When Leandro’s lips slowly curved into a smirk, Bobby knew that the jerk unfortunately did understand her. “Why,” he asked, “are you thinking about that? Did you look at the TV and remember it?”

Her jaw dropped. How did he know that?

He thought about making a joke and decided against it. He gazed at Bobby, and his heart clenched hard at how right she looked sitting across him. If he had his way, he wanted it to be like this between them forever. “I remember, too, mégaira,” he said seriously. “Everywhere I look, there’d be something that would remind me…”

“I don’t want to hear any more.”

The words stabbed him, but he willed the pain away, knowing he deserved it.

The way Leandro whitened at her words made Bobby bite her lip hard and she looked away, knowing she needed to compose herself and strengthen her defenses. Leandro’s penthouse apartment had an open layout, with the breakfast counter allowing her to see all the way to the living room and the balcony.

The frame next to the balcony doors caught her eye, and she realized with a jerk that it was a letter. Her letter. She always used personalized stationery when penning letters, and the gold initials engraved at the top of the paper was distinct.

“You received it.”

Leandro finished plating their food before following Bobby’s gaze. Ah. She had seen it. “I did.”

“You never answered,” she said in a thin voice.

“It was my punishment not to.”

The words were so surprising that it made her head snap towards him.

“When a member of our family passes, it is tradition for us to make a personal sacrifice for a year. For my mother, she simply fasted. The loss of my father – her husband – was already the greatest sacrifice. For my younger sister, she withdrew from school even though it meant losing her spot in a prestigious academy.”

Bobby asked faintly, “I was your personal sacrifice?”

“I died every day not being able to see you or beg your forgiveness,” he said simply. He looked back at the framed letter. “Amongst all of us, I had the most to atone for. I did not give my father an easy time raising me. I was always bitter and defensive – I couldn’t make myself lower my guard and allow him to love me. I was too afraid that one day he would tire of pretending.”

“They really loved you,” she told him softly. “Aunt Sam told me about your life…I knew from her words alone, they loved you.”

“It was hard for me to believe it.” He looked at her evenly. “You of all people should know that there are things you care too much about to easily believe in.”

Touché, Bobby thought, looking away because she couldn’t bear seeing the intense emotion in Leandro’s own eyes. There was a promise in those bright blue eyes, something she did care too much about to easily believe in herself.

“I knew it was a risk not to call you, not to write to you, but I had to do it. It was my punishment, not just because of what I had done to my father but because…” He inhaled sharply. “Because of what I had done to you. If not for that year of mourning, for surviving each day even though I ached – I literally ached to be by your side, I don’t think I’d ever feel I have the right to enter your life again.” An empty laugh escaped him. “But then, maybe I still don’t have the right.”

“Don’t talk like that.” She couldn’t help saying it, didn’t want to hear the pain and defeat in his tone. The Leandro Christopoulos she knew was not the kind who took such losses easily. He was strong and powerful, the kind who battled dragons without fear. It hurt to know, to really know that she was the reason he was hurting.

“Talk like what, Bobby? Talk like I’m afraid I’m about to lose the greatest thing in my life?” He dropped the knife he was holding, and Bobby flinched at the clanging sound it created as it hit the counter. The next thing she knew, he had gone around the counter and spun the stool around so she faced him.

“Have I lost you for good, Bobby?” he whispered harshly. “Tell me before I go out of my mind. Tell me I have a fucking chance.”

“Stop it,” she said, covering her ears as his words lashed at her. “I don’t want to hear---”

Leandro pulled her hands away, continuing in the same hard tone that spoke of agony and love. “Tell me I have a reason to look forward to tomorrow. Tell me, mégaira---”

“I said STOP IT---”

“If I stop, then I might as well have admitted I’m going to stop living,” he shouted. “Is that what you want? Is that what you really want, Bobby? Do you want me gone from your life? Do you want me dead---”

“No!” She sobbed the word out. Just the thought of losing him permanently was enough to rip her world apart and expose the truth about her feelings. She loved him. She still loved him. She would always love him and she would die if he died---

“Then take me back!”

“I can’t,” she cried out. “If I do, then I am the one who’d die. Because that’s what you did when you didn’t tell me the truth and I h-had to learn about your deception from another person. I d-died when you told me you d-didn’t love me---”

He said urgently, “I was lying---”

“How can you expect me to believe you? You can’t believe your parents can see something in you to love and when y-you told me that you n-never loved me, you made me think there was nothing in me to love either.”

He started to speak, but she shook her head at him. “You told me that every day when we were apart, you died. Well, I died, too. But the difference was I couldn’t let anyone see it. I was so sick with depression and I couldn’t let anyone know about it. I had to hide it from my parents when I started getting treatments in a clinic. I couldn’t ask anyone for help because I was too ashamed.” Tears choked her voice as she made the agonizing admission. “I was so ashamed about being the smug idiot who thought I could make someone like you love me---”

“But I do,” he grated out, his heart squeezing tightly in his chest at the fears Bobby exposed about herself. He closed his eyes for a moment, his mind crowded with images of Bobby being literally sick with the pain of his abandonment. If he had known, he thought with agony. God, if he had only known!

“I’m so damn sorry, Bobby. I thought that I was only punishing myself when I stayed away from you all this time. I thought you would need the time away from me to heal.” He took her face in his hands, wiping the tears away with his thumbs.

“That’s the last time I’d ever be stupid enough to unknowingly hurt you, Bobby,” he said fiercely. “I swear to you, from this day on, I’ll hurt myself first, I’ll expose myself first before I ever risk hurting you. Because now I know…”

There was something in those words that made Bobby catch her breath, something that made her so terrified of what he knew – of what he found out – that made her struggle against his hold.

But he was too strong, and his voice, once he started to speak, encompassed her whole world until there was no escape.

“Now I know, Bobby. Whatever you said or did, now I know the truth.”

“No,” she whispered. “No, you don’t---”

The pain he had unintentionally subjected Bobby to last year should have made her despise him with all her heart. But she hadn’t. She couldn’t.

“You love me, Bobby. For better or for worse, you love me the way I love you, and there’s no stopping it.”