Maximilian pulled her closer, his arms tightening around her as though he could hold together the pieces she was struggling to keep from falling apart. He did not try to stop her, because he knew, that this was not something words could soothe.
The last time, she had said those very same words.
I trusted the wrong man.
He remembered the weight of her in his arms back then, the way her body had slowly gone still as realization consumed her, as if the truth had drained the very will to live from her veins. He had watched it happen, helpless and unmoving, forced to witness the moment she understood everything and lost everything in the same breath.
And the cruelest part of it all was that he had not been separate from that truth.
He, too, had once been a man she trusted.
He, too, had failed her.
