"You don't need to dwell on that now –”
"I have to," he insists softly, his chest shuddering as he draws in another faint breath. "I need you to hear me say it before I close my eyes. You deserve to be loved, Zara. Truly loved. Deeply, safely, completely. You deserve a man who looks at you like you're the absolute center of the world, a man who builds a world with you instead of tearing it down around your ears."
He exhales, a ragged hitch in his chest.
"I was broken long before you ever looked my way," Knox murmurs. “I’m incapable of loving anyone. My soul was torn up when I was young, and I spent my whole life making everyone else pay for it. I couldn't love you, I couldn't love Becca, I couldn't even be a decent friend to Mayhem. That wasn't your failure. It was mine. It was never yo
