Resent Reject Regret by Aqua Summers novel Chapter 410

“So… This is how you spent four years of your life.”

Deirdre froze as the voice in her ear continued. “What did you do to deserve this, Deirdre? If only I had met you sooner… If only I had known you sooner. I could have protected you!”

Deirdre felt a lump unfurling in her throat. Her body was shaking—pain and self-pity suddenly took the form of a deluge flooding through her veins and breaking into her heart. Her eyes turned red. She thought she had grown accustomed to her fate and was done questioning God’s injustice. She had accepted this as the divine’s inexplicably stubborn grudge against her.

And then Kyran appeared and expressed empathetic anguish. He came and showed concern. And suddenly, the agony she had hidden was exposed. Naked.

It took her a long time to calm down and fight back the urge to cry. She raised her head and smiled. “Why apologize to me, Kyran? This has nothing to do with you at all! I’m happy just to live a peaceful life here. I want nothing now.

“Maybe… Maybe it’s because I’m a tough woman at heart. I just don't feel much. I even forgot it sometimes.”

Her smile felt like a dagger sunken into his chest.

He could not stop himself from pulling her into his arms. He just wanted to—God knew how much he wanted to warm her scarred, battered heart, thawing it out of that icy prison, someone else had forced it into. He wanted to be that warmth. Even if nothing came out of it, Kyran would try.

Deirdre sniffled and wiped away the last tear in her eye. “Kyran, I never wanted to display my scars and demand the world to pity me. I don’t think my life is any sadder or less than anyone else’s. If what you feel about me is pity, if you pity me because I remind you of your ex-girlfriend, who lost her eyes and couldn’t seem to live on her own, then I would rather we stay as friends.”

Quietly but firmly, she declared, “I am Deirdre McKinnon, and I never needed anybody’s pity!”

She meant it.

Kyran lifted his hand and caressed her cheeks. His hand was warm, as always.

Deirdre felt his breath beating down her skin. She closed her eyes. As their lips met—fitting each other perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle—a tear managed to escape her eyelid and trickled down her cheek.

If her heart was an impregnable fortress, its walls steep and unscalable, its interior unreachable… then Kyran was that single ray of sunlight that simply ignored all of her defenses and shone right down on the center square.

He had seen her at her worst, pathetic state, and unsightly moments. None of it made him walk away or walk out on her. He could not care less about what others thought.