The intimacy of Eliott revealing her unseen tattoos, the way his fingers traced every lost mark on her skin, left Maëlys breathless and raw. Each faded line became a conduit to a past self she was both fascinated by and terrified of. He was systematically peeling back the layers of her amnesia, exposing a life – and a love – far more consuming and dangerous than she had ever imagined. The erotic pull was undeniable, but it was tangled with the heavy specter of Léonie, a ghost whose presence was increasingly palpable.
Maëlys shifted away from Eliott, needing space, needing to breathe. The tenderness of his touch was a stark contrast to the dark truths he'd revealed, and she struggled to reconcile the two. "Léonie," she said, her voice strained. "What was she to all of this? What was she to me?"
Eliott's expression tightened, the shadow of grief returning to his stormy eyes. He rose from the bed, moving to the window, his back to her, as if the pain of the memory was too much to face head-on. "Léonie was... complicated," he began, his voice low, heavy. "She was Liam's girlfriend. His anchor, sometimes. His obsession, always."
He turned back, his gaze direct and unflinching. "But she was your best friend, Maëlys. From childhood. You two were inseparable. Like sisters. You had a bond... a loyalty that ran deeper than anything. Even deeper than Léonie's loyalty to Liam, sometimes."
Maëlys felt a sharp pang in her chest. A best friend. The loss of that connection was a gaping void she hadn't realized was there. The name Léonie, once just a name in a newspaper, now conjured a vague sense of warmth, of shared laughter, of an unbreakable bond. The fact that Liam, Eliott's brother, was also Léonie's boyfriend, added another layer of devastating complexity to their entangled past.
"She knew about us, didn't she?" Maëlys whispered, the realization a bitter taste on her tongue. Her past self, reckless and impulsive, had betrayed her best friend.
Eliott's jaw clenched. "Eventually. It was... messy. Liam was already unstable, obsessed with Léonie. But when he found out about you and me... it pushed him over the edge." His voice was raw with self-reproach. "Léonie was caught in the middle. She tried to make him see reason. To stop him that night. She was trying to protect you, too, Maëlys."
The guilt was suffocating. Maëlys remembered the fear in Léonie's face from her last, most vivid flashback. Léonie hadn't been screaming in terror for herself, but for Maëlys, trying to stop Liam. The weight of this revelation was crushing. Her lost memories painted a picture of herself that was far from innocent, a participant in a dangerous love triangle that had claimed a life.
"She tried to save me?" Maëlys repeated, her voice laced with a horrified understanding.
Eliott nodded, his eyes filled with a shared agony. "She loved you, Maëlys. Fiercely. Even when she hated us both for what we were doing. She got in that car with him that night, hoping to diffuse the situation, to stop him from doing something reckless. She never intended to leave you." His voice broke, thick with the weight of years of unspoken grief. "She was a victim of our fire, Maëlys. And I… I couldn't save her."
He stepped towards her, his large hands reaching out, not for passion, but for connection, for shared grief. Maëlys didn't pull away this time. The anger at his deception still lingered, a cold ember, but it was eclipsed by the profound sadness, the shared tragedy that now bound them. Eliott wasn't just her lover, her keeper of secrets; he was a fellow survivor, haunted by the same ghosts, burdened by the same unbearable guilt. The erotic tension of their dark romance was now interwoven with a thread of profound sorrow, promising a future that would forever be shadowed by Léonie's ghost.