Chapter 1863:


    She had pretended to be a man and be his closestpanion. And then her falling-out with Dn had turned out to be staged as well. And to make it all worse, Dn — the man Robin had mentally cast as his greatest rival — was evidently very much still in the picture.


    The more he turned it over, the more furious he felt.


    “We didn’t want to keep you in the dark, but the circumstances made it necessary. I’m truly sorry,” Christina said, and she meant it.


    Robin felt the smallest measure of his anger ease when he understood he hadn’t been singled out — that she had kept this from everyone. But he was still far from settled. “So… is this the big secret you were going to tell me?”


    He barely finished the question before he caught something in her expression — a small, almost imperceptible smile, private and a little shy.


    Something shifted in his chest. A heavy, sinking feeling took hold before he had even worked out why.


    He watched, helpless, as Christina and Dn exchanged a look that said everything without a word. Then she reached out and took Dn’s hand, and they held on to each other without letting go.


    There was no room for misinterpretation. None at all.


    The tightness in Robin’s chest became almost unbearable. He felt the air leave the car.


    They were together. Properly, genuinely together.


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    He had only just allowed himself to admit, quietly and honestly, that he loved her. He had been working up to the idea of trying — slowly, carefully — to see if something might grow between them. But now, before a single word had left his lips, it was already over.


    He sat with the weight of a loss that had never quite had the chance to be something real.


    “This is the secret I was talking about,” Christina said, lifting their joined hands so Robin could see their fingersced together.


    Dn had bristled the moment he noticed Robin earlier, but Christina’s open acknowledgment of them changed the atmosphere entirely. Hearing her im their rtionship so inly, in front of someone else, eased something in his chest. She was no longer keeping them hidden. For now, only a handful of people knew — but Dn felt certain it wouldn’t be long before she made it known to everyone.


    Robin sat very still, watching Dn hold her hand, that quietly satisfied smile resting on his face. Something inside him felt as though it hade apart at the seams.


    A massive secret that would shock him. It wasn’t merely shocking. It was a blow delivered directly to the heart.


    The silence stretched. After a moment, he steadied his voice as best he could. “When did this start?”


    Christina’s fingers curled more tightly around Dn’s. “After he was injured saving me, I understood what he meant to me. That’s when I chose to be with him.”


    The wordsnded like another impact. A dull, heavy ache settled in Robin’s chest and spread.


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