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Limelight
By Karisma

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Chapter Eight

She started urgently, forcing herself to remain calm because she knew she had to take this very slowly. “Let me explain,” she winced as she got the words out, realizing how they utterly reeked of guilt on her part, so she said the only thing of truth that could possibly stop him at this time. “I love you.”

He interrupted anything further she might have said with a look of such utter revulsion her throat froze. “Understand this. There is nothing you could say that I would believe. Nothing.” She felt tears prick the back of her eyes at the cruelty in his words, realizing they were completely deserved, but nonetheless disbelieving that he was actually saying them to her.

“You’re a winner,”—his gaze flicked to the addressed letter that he held tightly in his hand—“Serena Kinsley.” His mouth twisted into a derisive smirk. “A real class-A winner. Just when I thought I’d seen it all—a beautiful, manipulative liar such as yourself enters.” He clapped his hands slowly, the sharp sound cutting straight to her heart. “Give yourself a bow, Serena. Not many women have the ability to act sweet when they are really vindictive—”

“Stop it!” Serena cried out, unable to endure any more of his lashes. “Stop it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Her resolve to remain calm crumbled at the hatred she saw in his eyes. Her voice turned into a broken whisper. “Last night when—“

“When I made an utter fool of myself,” he intercepted, the raw emotion she had seen on his face gone, in place a hard mask of indifference. “You thought you would call Mina and say you have had so much fun screwing with Darien Eddington’s life, you’ve decided to stay two more weeks, is that it?”

“No!” She burst out, her expression frantic because she realized she was losing him—and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Grasping for anything that might sway him to calm down and listen to her, she sucked in a shuddering breath. “Darien, I swear—”

“You swear?” Darien’s incredulous voice broke through, look down at her with a contemptuous glance. “Forgive me if I don’t rush to believe everything you have to say here, Serena.”

“Look,” she tried again desperately. “Mina called me because she needed a break. I never planned I’ d meet you—”

“Save it!” He barked, cutting a hand through the air as if sentencing the matter to a close. His voice turned silky with the menacing underlay of steel. “What I’m really interested in is why.”

“I told you,” Serena choked out, wiping her wet face with her hand roughly. “Mina came to me—”

“You see,” Darien cut in calmly. “That’s not what I think. I think you two are a pair of devious manipulators who came up with this extraordinary coup to for the sole purpose of entertainment.

“So whose idea was it? Yours, no doubt. Nevermind, I don’t really care. All I know is that your little perfidy is over and it’s time to for Serena to take that bow she’s been itching to have.” He yanked his dark jacket off the perfectly made bed and folded it over his arm. Striding to the living room with quick, lithe movements, he paused just before the door, turning back to her stricken face.

“But how long would you have kept it up? Would you have allowed me to propose before bringing out Mina and slapping me in the face with it?”

“No,” Serena sobbed brokenly. “I was planning on telling you today.”

“Right,” he drawled, smirking. He paused. “You know, I knew you were different from Mina—but I didn’t think it was for the worst. I thought you were sweet and unaffected by everything Hollywood does to a person. Mina may have her shallow moments, but at least she doesn’t hide it. She’s open and honest.” He looked at her with disgust. “You on the other hand, are sneaky and devious—and everything she’s not.”

She kept her gaze on the carpet below her, tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes. She missed the painfully poignant look he gave her, just as she missed the look of utter despair that crossed his face before he walked out the door, shutting it firmly behind him.


Serena stared blankly at the door for immeasurably amount of time, wondering if this were all some horrible nightmare she would soon awake from to find Darien’s arms around her. Semi shocked to realize it was real, she moved around the room woodenly, wondering what it was she should do.

As she resigned herself to packing for the first plane that would take her back to Campton, anger seeped in and eradicated most of the absolute despair she felt. Remembering the pejorative words he had flung at her and her sister, Serena’s resolve hardened. There was no way she’d let herself mourn the loss of a man whose supposed love didn’t stand the test of hardship. He hadn’t even bothered to listen!

Not acknowledging the tiny seed of emptiness embedded within her, she forced herself to cling on to the fury she felt. Wrath was better than anguish—wrath fueled her to move; anguish compelled her to crumple into a heap and cry.


One hour later, Serena was driving her rented car to the airport. She had made arrangements for it to be delivered back to the rental company soon after her departure. Apparently, the name Mina Kinsley carried weight. She could have requested a police escort and a circus waiting for her and the order would have no doubt been carried.

Driving at a speed she had reprimanded her sister for when they were sixteen, Serena jerked into another lane, her hands clutching the wheel so tightly, her knuckled were white. Impulsively, she turned off into a street and headed around, making her way to the familiar road toward Darien’s home.

A guard was outside the ornate gates and she managed a bright, nonchalant smile as she lifted her dark sunglasses up to her blonde head.

“Hi,” she said pleasantly, effectively diminishing the quavering that her being emanated at the realization of what she was about to do. “Is Mr. Eddington in?”

After blushing and asking for her autograph for his wife and kids, the guard buzzed her in without so much as an afterthought. Apparently, Darien hadn’t gotten around to placing her name on the black list of people who could absolutely not enter under no circumstances—right up there with the paparazzi.

She strode in, head held high, without a second glance at her lavish surroundings. Making her way through an expansive and meticulously decorated entrance, complete with a butler and miniature waterfall, Serena nodded her head to the elderly man in return for his information concerning Darien’s whereabouts in the large mansion.

Her low heels clicking on the marble floor, Serena made her way to the study, holding on to her anger and depending on it to get her through the next crucial moment. Swinging open the double doors, she treaded in, flicking over the vast collection of books and settling her gaze on the single man at a dark, wooden desk.

He looked up, his face registering his second of surprise before a look of staid boredom covered any emotion. He had showered, his hair still damp, and had changed into a dark silk shirt and pressed slacks. Pulling off a pair of gold reading glasses that looking absurdly sexy on him, he looked at her stoically, obviously waiting for her to begin.

She didn’t disappoint him.

“Not only are you an utter hypocrite, you’re also a heartless brute who wouldn’t be capable of loving if his life depended on it. Yes, I lied to you. And I’m sorry—you won’t believe just how sorry I am. But you lied too, Darien. You told me you loved me, but obviously, you didn’t love me enough to let me explain.” Her voice started with fiery determination and faded away to a wounded tone she hated.

“I told you I loved you when I thought you were Mina.”

It was meant to cut and it did. Serena recoiled as if she had been slapped. And in that instant, she realized by just how much she was hanging on to. She would lose him if this meeting didn’t work. She would lose him forever. And he would continue hating her.

“Don’t do this to us,” she whispered achingly. “Please, I’m begging you. Don’t do this to us.” Her tone was pitiful and she knew she had just placed her pride on the line—she was doing everything short of begging on her knees.

He stared into her drenched eyes for a moment and for a moment, Serena thought maybe—just maybe she had gotten through his impassive demeanor. Then he spoke.

“I initially made the mistake of not informing the guards to not let you in.” He placed his glasses back on and bent his head over the papers on his desk. He continued to speak drolly, not bothering to look up at her expressive face. “I’ll tell them to do so once you’re escorted out.”

He was throwing her out.

She wanted to fling something caustic and harsh in his face. She wanted to depart with words that would hurt him as much as he had hurt just now. But it took all her energy just to calmly walk out of the study and then exit the mansion. She drove back to the hotel serenely and braked into her guest parking. Only when she mutely acknowledged she had missed her flight, did she bite her tremulous lip and bend her head over the wheel, her hands clutching it forcefully, crying openly.

She needed to go home. She didn’t belong here—she never had. This was Mina’s place with Mina’s life—and Darien loved Mina. The limelight wasn’t for her, it was made for her sister. And apparently, so was Darien.


Darien Eddington knocked over an expensive double pencil holder among other things on his desk in one deft movement, watching with no satisfaction as they fell to the marble floor with a loud cacophony. She had played him perfectly—every nuance, every kiss, every touch.

He had believed them to be sacred moments that he reveled in. Instead they were all part of a wonderful ruse that he had been inconceivably naïve about.

She was a better actress then he and Mina combined, he realized with a twist of his mouth. She took the cake.

Not only had be thought of her as a dilettante to the entire world of intimate relationships and Hollywood, he had been willing to pour his heart out to a cold woman who could put Meryl Streep to shame. He had been planning to marry her!

She was a virus—a parasite. One who got her kicks by humiliating others. And the sooner he erased her from his mind and life, the better. Because Serena Kinsley wasn’t the type of woman you married—she was the type you wanted and then discarded.

And the throbbing in his chest would soon pass, as would the empty dejection his heart screamed. And time healed all wounds.

But even as he reassured himself with empty words, he had the distinct impression that time couldn’t heal him from one slip of woman named Serena Kinsley.


“What is the matter with you?” Mina demanded of her sister a few days later, hands on her slim hips, her newly acquired tan radiating. “You’ve been a gloomy Gus since you came back.”

“Just leave me alone, Mina.” Serena sighed tiredly, picking lightly at the pastel rose pattern on her throw pillow

“No,” Mina insisted, snatching the cushion away, forcing her sister to look at her. “What is your problem?”

“Nothing!” Serena bit out harsher than she had intended. Sighing, she retracted her statement. “I’m sorry.”

“I gave you a vacation, Serena. Be happy!”

Serena snorted. “Excuse me? I get stuck working eighteen hour days, doing interviews about things I no clue about. You go to Tahiti and meet your dream man. Who had a vacation?”

Mina sighed heavily. “I’m sorry about all that. But you had fun—you had a little affair with Darien Eddington, didn’t you?” Mina nudged her sister suggestively, not noticing the stiffness that entered her body.

“We did not have an affair,” Serena said shortly, looking away from Mina to a painting on her wall.

“Sure,” Mina drawled. “And all the photos everywhere are just making it up, right? Darien told everyone that you and he were an item.”

“You mean Darien and Mina.” Serena corrected bitterly.

“Yes,” Mina gave a sigh of a martyr. “And I’ll be up to my ears trying to sort through that mess.”

“Sorry.” She said tersely.

“It’s quite all right,” Mina rambled on gaily, not seeing the moisture that filled up her sister’s eyes. “The way I see it, you should be thanking me for giving you a fabulous chance to loosen—”

It took them both by surprise when Serena abruptly shot up from the couch, her expression furious as she glared down at her sister. “Thanking you?” She spat out, her voice dripping with venom. “Thanking you? Yes, well, let me thank you, Mina, for the big hole in my heart for the past few days. Let me thank you for the fact that my life is now in pieces. Let me thank you for the fact my heart is breaking!”

Serena stared into her sister’s astonished face, her breathing ragged from her emotional tirade. She closed her hot eyes and fell back against the sofa, willing herself not to cry again.

“Serena?” Mina finally whispered, her voice shaky and hesitant. “Tell me you’re not—you didn’t…”

Her answer was silence and it was good enough.

“Geez,” Mina breathed. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She shook her head, thinking a loud. “All this time I’ve been raving about wedding plans with Andrew, and you’ve—“ she cut herself off and started a completely new line of thought. “Well, we have to fix this.”

Serena’s head snapped up at her dogged tone. “No! Just-just stay out of it, please, Mina?”

Mina looked down at her sister’s haggard face and her own softened. Smoothing Serena’s brow as she had done for her when they were young, Mina flipped the afghan over the couch and onto Serena’s tired form. “Go to sleep, Sere.” Mina whispered, watching tenderly as Serena closed her exhausted eyes. Kissing her forehead, Mina straightened and locked her jaw in determination.

She had a bone to pick with certain Academy-Award nominated actor.


Mina drove straight from the airport to Darien’s house in a rental car that was presumably under her name. Slowing when she reached the formidable gates that surrounded the lavish house, she rolled down her window the converse with the guard.

The guard looked down at her somberly. “Sorry, Miss Kinsley, Mr. Eddington has placed strict orders that you are not to be allowed in here.”

Mina flashed an effortlessly winning smile. She had expected as much. “If you check the list again, I believe you’ll see that Serena Kinsley is not allowed—I’m Mina Kinsley.” Still grinning sweetly to cover her nervousness, she bit her lip while the guard double checked a clipboard.

“You’re right,” the guard informed her. The stout man flashed her a smile of his own. “I wanted to thank you again for signing them papers for my children. It meant a lot to them.”

Covering her initial confusion well, Mina simply laughed and replied easily. “You’re more than welcome.”

Less than two minutes later she was walking the same path unbeknownst to her, her sister had treaded not a week earlier. Pulling open the doors that led to the study, she walked in, her chin jutted out in obduracy.

“Well, well, well.” Darien drawled, shoving back the sides of his jacket to put his hands in his pant pockets. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” He pretended to look confused, knowing full well which twin was which. “Is it Mina? Or Serena?” He clicked his tongue. “You’re both so much alike.”

Of course he knew it was Mina. This sister didn’t make his blood pressure rise with a smile nor did her laugh make him want to. This sister’s presence left him unmoved while Serena’s compelled him to hold her.

She fixed him with an icy glare that surprised him, considering he was the one with the full right to be fuming, while she was the reprehensible one. Or rather her sister. Maybe Mina hadn’t even known about what her sister was doing, maybe Mina had gone away for a quiet vacation and Serena had seen it as the perfect opportunity to step in and take the limelight.

But Mina’s pugnacious words erased that theory from his mind. “I came to Serena less than three weeks ago, begging her to take my place for two weeks so that I could get a break from life. I hadn’t spoken to her in over eight years and still she dropped everything to for a favor to me.” She gave a laugh. “Because that is the kind of person she is.”

Mina moved around the large room, running a finger along the spines of leather bound books before spinning around to look at him with a deadly calm about her. “Do you know that when we were kids, Serena was always looking out for me?”

“However fascinating this is—” Darien began irritably, running a hand through his dark hair.

“Shut up, Darien.” Mina snapped quietly and Darien complied with a frustrated roll of his blue eyes. “Even though we were twins, Serena always seemed to be older by years—in everything. If you gave me three years of your time, I couldn’t to tell you everything she has done for me.

“When we were fifteen, Serena covered for me while I cut school. She ran around to all my classes; told the teachers some lame excuses and even took a test I’d put off for weeks. When we were sixteen, I snuck out of the house to go to a concert with my boyfriend and came home drunk as a skunk. Serena made me drink loads of coffee and kept it from our parents. At seventeen, my prom date stood me up and Serena told her date to go on without her and stayed with me the entire night, comforting me. And then when we were eighteen—,” she broke off now, tears forming in her crystalline eyes—“I went on a date with this awful guy—tattoos everywhere and not an un-stoned day on his record. Serena begged me not to go, but I didn’t listen. Later that night, after drinking more than his body weight, he tried to rape me. Serena came—to this day I don’t know how she knew I was in trouble—and broke his car window with a crowbar and hauled me out of there.”

Darien was looking at her with concealed interest, his mind coming to form an idea to the point she was trying to make.

Mina looked up from her intertwined hands, tears sliding down her pale face. “And then,” she let out a choked laugh. “I leave her without a word for eight years to build my career. I leave her to face the aftershock of our mother’s death alone and then deal with our father’s death shortly after. After which, I come to her door begging for my sister and does she laugh and throw me out? No, she agrees to live my horrible life, do my demanding job and not complain once! Because, like I said, that’s the kind of person she is.”

At his disgusted snort of disbelief, Mina glared at him. She bit out without a moment’s hesitation. “Darien, when Serena switched places with me, she and I both thought you were on vacation somewhere—we thought it would be easier for Serena because you weren’t around to suspect anything. So, if she wanted to pull off some grand hoax to screw with you, why would she do it on the two weeks you were supposedly going to be in Bahamas?” She watched a stricken expression replace his bored one with satisfaction.

She continued, ignoring his look of horror at his grave mistake. “And the thing that gets me is that after all that, after all the heartbreak I’ve caused her—after all the heartbreak you’ve caused her, she still loves us.” Mina came closer to Darien, searching his blank eyes for an iota of emotion. “Serena is the most loyal, wonderful person I have ever met. And for some reason, she loves you. Even after all you’ve done to her—most of which she won’t tell me—she still loves you, Darien.” His clenched jaw twitched imperceptibly at that bit of information. “Serena can find someone better than you—I know that. Lord knows she deserves someone better than you. But you’ll never find someone half as amazing as her.”

With that, she spun her heel, prepared to leave now that she had said her piece. Walking smartly across the floor, she had reached the oak doors before his voice called out to her.

“Campton, right?”

Mina, with her back turned to him, let out a smile of relief. When she rotated her head to glance back at him, her face was devoid of all emotion. She gave a curt nod and left—flashing the ornery butler a smile that lit up most silver screens in her jubilance.

She hoped to God it would work out. She prayed for it to. Serena deserved it. And Mina also prayed for it somewhat selfishly. If Darien did his part then Serena would be a very happy woman. A grateful, happy woman. And Mina wanted—needed—to do something to repay her sister for all the years of sisterhood Serena had given her.


Serena dumped her mail on her dining table, rubbing the back of her neck tiredly. Sighing, she flopped down on the couch. The lab had been a mess today. Melvin, her co-worker down at the lab had been sick and then something experiment had gone all wrong—causing her to be forced to leave work in the middle of the day. She had had to go back to work immediately since the rest of the world thought the past two weeks had been a vacation for Serena Kinsley.

A vacation, Serena thought with an ironic laugh. What a complete joke.

Most days she couldn’t decide whether to regret ever laying eyes on Darien Eddington or relish the blissful moments they had spent together. She was torn between the two.

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Perhaps the cliché was right, the poignant memories she shared with Darien were something no one could take away and it was best to remember him like the sensitive man that had kissed her and told her he loved her rather than the angry one who had been revolted at the sight of her. If nothing else, she had the delusion that Darien had, at one time, loved her deeply.

She sighed heavily again, and turned on the television to keep her mind from wandering that much traveled path that led to an inevitable sobbing fest. She changed the channels idly and froze, wishing she had gone straight to sleep in the afternoon instead.

There, in front of her eyes, was the commercial she had skillfully avoided for the past week. But now, as it started, she was unable to tear her eyes away from it or change the channel.

As the announced droned on, giving segments of the plot away but nothing to reveal the true nature of the film, Serena stared transfixed as the screen was split into two parts. One side was a picture of her smiling, the other was of him grinning that disarming smile. Then clips of the movie rolled while the movie’s soundtrack played in the background.

Jared offering Chloe a bit of his ice cream cone then shoving it into her nose as she leaned in…a close up of her outraged face and his laughing one…a shot of them slow dancing in an empty, dark room…a picture of their first kiss on that same dance floor…the scene with the rose in the garden where Jared ran the flower lightly over Chloe’s features…a clip of Chloe sobbing when she told Jared she couldn’t be with him…his dejected face…Chloe running away…and the final shot their silhouettes against a sunset on the beach, Chloe’s hair blowing in the breeze, her arms wrapped around Jared as they leaned it…and then the title of the film: Only You.

How painfully true that title turned out to be, Serena thought bitterly, flicking off the television with an unsatisfying harsh jab. Groaning at the seemingly multitude of hours she had to kill before she would try to sleep, Serena rubbed her face, running through her options.

Finally deciding, she grabbed the black jacket she had just discarded and shrugged it on, flipping her loose hair over the collar. Jogging down the apartment steps, she stepped out into the soon to be dying daylight, enjoying the autumn smells that Campton emanated.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Chapin,” she called to the elderly man whittling on his porch. His response was a grunt and a half wave and Serena took it with a fond smile. She had known the man since she was a toddler. He had read to her and tucked her in and she and Mina had both peed on him at one time or another.

She walked through the small town, smiling and waving at the familiar faces, convincing herself it was wonderful to be home. Reaching her destination, she entered the large bookstore with pride. Campton was a tiny town, but they had one of the largest, most eclectic bookstores in the state.

Unwittingly, making a bee-line for the science fiction section, she waved to Margie, a clerk, and browsed through the new books that had arrived while she had been away. It wasn’t until she red the label above the racks that she realized where her traitorous body had taken her. Against her will, she remembered Darien’s comment about his genre of books at the current moment: science fiction. Shaking her head, she took one especially fat novel off the eye level rack and immediately froze.

On the other side of the large gap that the missing book had caused, was a pair of silver blue eyes she had come to know very well—and tried extremely hard to forget.

“Serena?” His deep voice came from across and she panicked. Dropping book haphazardly on a nearby reading table, she sprinted out the sliding doors, ignoring the stares as Darien called after her. “Serena, wait!”

She ran all the way home, dimly recalling how she had told him of the bookstore in her hometown while they were at the airport. But that didn’t explain why he was here. Her breathing ragged when she reached the safe haven of her apartment, Serena got to wondering just how safe it really was.

With the dawning realization that everybody in the tiny town knew where she lived and it wouldn’t take long for Darien to find her, Serena ran to her bedroom and packed a bag, dumping contents in blindly. Clicking the luggage shut, she hauled it off her floral comforter and jogged to the door. Grabbing a set of keys and her purse, she flung open the door and walked right into a hard body.

Stumbling a few steps back into the apartment, Serena looked up dazedly into an achingly familiar face.

“Hello, Serena.”

Blindly, she dropped her bag and prepared herself to bulldoze past him if she had to. Walking quickly, she had just made it before he had her in his arms, shutting the door behind him with his foot. Not releasing his hold on her, he all but carried her to the living room, surveying his surroundings with interest at how Serena—the real Serena—lived.

Looking back down at the frightened woman in his arms, he smiled briefly at her beautifully pale face. Staring at her now, he wondered how he ever could have thought Serena was Mina. Their faces were as different as their personalities. Serena’s cheekbones were more prominent, her lips fuller, her eyelashes thicker, her hair more golden, her eyes a unique shade of crystalline blue.

Without realizing what he was doing, he bent his head and kissed her, his lips showing his apology, imploring her to forgive him.

“No!” she wrenched her face away from him so that his lips brushed her temple. She tried to struggle from his grasp and after some debate he let her go.

“Serena,” he began, loving her name, her face, her soul more than he deemed possible.

“No!” She all but yelled, her lips quivering. “I don’t want to hear it. Just get out.”

“I can’t.” He answered helplessly. She missed the look of despair in his dark eyes.

“Then I will,” she said succinctly, heading toward the door once again. But Darien intercepted, catching her in his arms once again. It was then she snapped, beating against his taut chest with her small fists. “I begged you! I stood there and begged you! You heartless…” She sobbed against him, mumbling incoherent things, some of which that questioned his legitimacy as a child.

When it was over and the battering her hands produced had subsides, she laid limp against him, crying into his neck with a despondency that tore at him. “I’m sorry,” he rasped out, rubbing her back gently, soothing her wracking sobs with a helplessness that he hated. “I’m so sorry.”

“Fine.” She said dully, pulling away from him. “You apologized. I accept. Now please leave.”

Darien gazed at her sparkling eyes and watched as a tear clung to her eyelashes then dripped down her porcelain cheek. He had hurt her beyond belief. She had apologized profusely, but he hadn’t wanted to listen. After being the aim of his spiteful comments, she had come back for more, come back for to salve their relationship. And not only had he watched her coldly as she begged and sobbed, he had thrown her out with humiliatingly finality. And now he recalled her astonished behavior when he had told her he loved her that last night. She hadn’t wanted him to say it—to protect him. She hadn’t wanted him to get hurt. And this was how he repayed her.

“I love you,” he said raggedly, his face as white as a sheet, his eyes dark with pain at her hurting.

Serena closed her eyes, anguish ripping through her. “No, you love Mina. Remember? You said so that—that day.” She was fighting for control—and losing.

Darien winced at the recollection of that particularly cruel statement he himself had driven into her. “No,” he said gently, his tone firm. “I love you. And as for the things I accused you of—I’m sorry, Serena. I’m so sorry.” He closed his eyes in self-disgust.

“I already said I accepted. Now will you leave?” Serena pleaded, reaching the end of her tether.

“No,” it was unambiguous as he held her smaller hands in his, bending his head slightly so she forced to look at him through shining eyes. “You said you loved me that morning and I know you meant it. So—” he took a shuddering breath and Serena saw a vulnerability in his eyes she had never been held privy to before. “Do you love me, Serena?”

Serena felt an acute sense of de ja vu as she remembered that last night they had spent together. Where he had admitted his love for her. No, for Mina. She wanted to lie to him again like she had that night and tell him he meant nothing to her. But they both knew that was not true.

It was his eyes, Serena realized with a heady feeling. That night he had looked into her eyes and seen the truth and if she looked up now, he’d see it again.

“I really don’t see how it matters,” Serena whispered, staring down at her sneakered feet. “You love Mina.”

Darien let out a growl and pulled her to him, his arms strong but curiously gentle. “I love the woman who completed Only You with me. I love the woman who made me throw popcorn at people. I love the woman who dragged me into an art museum and confessed she was afraid of something. I love the woman who doesn’t realize it, but is afraid of losing people. You are afraid, Serena. You’re afraid that since you lost your parents, and temporarily lost Mina, you’ll lose everything.” He braced his hands on her cheeks, wiping the tears away. “And then I left you.” He shook his head in self-loathing. “But I’m here—and I’m not going anywhere."

It was quiet for a full, pregnant minute until Serena’s head came up from her study of the carpet. “I’m sorry,” her voice was barely audible.

Darien was taken back. “For what?”

“For lying to you,” she sniffled. ”I-I didn’t want to—” she cut herself off. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” He replied shortly. “If Mina hadn’t asked you to switch places with her, I would have never met you. And I can’t imagine my life without you.”

She sniffed again and brought her tear-stained face up to his view. She was shocked to see his own beautiful eyes grow misty. Her lips trembled uncertainly as she spoke her next words with a firm ardor, “I love you, Darien Eddington.”

He was perfectly still for a moment, his body taut. And then he crushed her to him, rocking back and forth in a comforting pattern. “And I love you, Serena Kinsley.”

With that, she promptly burst into tears. He stopped rocking alarmed at her tears. “What happened?” He asked, alarmed. Pulling back to look at her face awash with tears, he searched her eyes for a clue.

“Nothing,” she said happily, her smile watery. “I just always wondered how it would sound when you said that with my name.”

Laughing lightly, he pulled her closer to him. “You’ll get sick of it once I start saying it thirty times a day.”

“Never,” she promised fiercely, her hold on him growing tighter as he bent his head down to kiss her. Her. Serena Kinsley.