I sucked in a deep breath and held it, and when that wasn’t enough, I let it go slowly and pulled in one more. Jace wasn’t looking at me. He couldn’t. Or maybe he wouldn’t. I wasn’t being fair to either of them, and I damn well knew it. What I didn’t know was how to remedy that without hurting someone. Or—more likely—all of us.

In that moment, with Marc snoring softly behind us, and Jace staring at the road like nothing else existed while he waited for my reply, I wished I’d never let him kiss me. That I’d never kissed him back. I wished we’d been strong enough to deal with Ethan’s death without falling into each other physically. Without connecting on such a primal, emotional level.

If I’d never known what I was missing, surely this wouldn’t be so hard.

But that was a futile wish, worth less than every penny I’d wasted on fountains as a child. And even if I could undo what I’d done, I wasn’t convinced it would make any difference.

I didn’t feel something for Jace simply because I slept with him. The truth was that I slept with him because I felt something for him. Even if we’d had the willpower to resist physical comfort in such emotionally fragile states, I would still feel something for Jace. And eventually something else would happen to weaken our willpower, and the result would be the same.

Only it would be infinitely worse if it had happened after I’d married Marc.

“Faythe?” Jace practically breathed my name, and I heard the filament-thin edge of panic in his voice. He couldn’t interpret my silence and had assumed the worst-case scenario. “What are you thinking?”

I sighed, a fragile sound that was little more than the slide of air between my lips. “I’m thinking that I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“That makes two of us.”

I glanced at him in surprise, and he shot me a grin that was almost…shy. “What, you think I planned this?” I shrugged helplessly, and he turned back to the road. “Okay, maybe while you guys were broken up, I thought about it occasionally. Or more like constantly. But now? I like my teeth in my mouth and my face intact, thank you. I know what this means for me, and I know what it means for Marc. And I know what it means for the Pride.”

“Jace…” I started, but he shook his head.

“Let me finish.”

After a second of silence, I nodded hesitantly.

“If I love you more than you love me, I’m as good as dead. Yet I can’t make myself take it back. I can’t just walk away from you, because every time you pass by me without smiling, without touching my hand, or at least making eye contact, it feels like I’m dying inside. And I’m pretty sure that hurts worse than whatever Marc would do to me. Whatever your dad would do.