The memory of that moment, of my desperate attempts to seduce a man who had no interest in me, still makes my cheeks burn with shame.
I was so foolish, so naive, so utterly convinced that my body was the only weapon I needed to win against my mother.
Rhine held my waist and took me off him with surprising gentleness, his hands firm but not rough, lifting me as if I weighed nothing at all.
He set me down beside him on the floor, then he patted my head with the kind of affection one might show a child, and said the most stupid thing I have ever heard:
"I am... in love with your mother, Marina," he smiled a sad smile—a smile that knew the wearer was fighting a hopeless battle, that understood the odds were stacked against him, that accepted defeat even as it was happening.
It was the smile of a man who had already lost but refused to stop loving anyway.
