"I cannot speak of my past, but I need you to know that I never meant to harm you," he said.
"Why can you not tell me?" She demanded, frustration spilling from her lips. "Do you not see how unfair this is to me? To suffer for a past I know nothing of?" She had tried to hold back, to be patient but she could no longer contain it. How could they coexist if they kept secrets from one another?
"You do not understand," he murmured. "My past is not one I take pride in. It is a stain upon me, one I wish I could wash away…but I cannot. And just when I believed I had left it behind, it returned to haunt me. How can I bring myself to speak of such shame?"
Belle saw the pain in his gaze, and it unsettled her. What could his past hold that it tormented him so deeply? That he could not even share the weight of it with the woman he claimed as his own?
