Rose's POV

"She was right about something else too," Dimitri said after a long pause. My back was to him, but there was a strange quality to his voice that made me turn around.

"What's that?" I asked.

"That I do still love you."

My heart skipped a beat. He looked at me with those beautiful brown eyes and I knew he was telling the truth; that if I wanted to, we could be together. I remembered our wonderful time in the cabin: just hours before they took my Dimitri away from me. Then my mind flashed to all the training sessions and the time we almost gave into each other under Viktor's spell. We had been through so much together and he had put me through hell, and now we were ready to be back into each other's arms. I smiled, about to hug him and tell him that I forgave him, then I thought about someone else…

Adrian. Sweet, sensitive Adrian who had picked up all the broken pieces of my heart and tried to glue them back together. The same Adrian who had been my rock and one of the three people in the world who knew me so well words were not needed. Now I was about to betray him for another of those people.

Dimitri was staring at me with a patient but expectant look on his face. Those brown eyes were filled with more love and passion than I had seen them with since after we changed him. At that very second, he looked most like the Dimitri I once knew – the Dimitri who believed that he was worthy of fighting the good battle of love and loyalty. How could I ever deny Dimitri of anything when he looked at me like that? It's amazing how just as I was just getting over him, there he was; waiting to be granted admission back into my heart. He held my hand.

"Roza?" That was all he said. I saw and felt again the heat and passion of our time in the cabin and felt the usual electricity pass through me. He looked down at his hand on top of mine and began making circles with his thumb on the palm of my hand.

"No, Dimitri. I'm sorry." My eyes widened. Even I had not expected my answer to be that one.

"I understand. I have left you, now I expect you to come back into my arms. It was selfish of me." He pulled his hand away from mine and his guardian mask slipped back into place, but the amount of pain in his eyes was unfathomable. A single tear slid down my face. That's it. I had just ended things between us.

"I'm sorry. So sorry, Dimitri, but I love Adrian and he was there for me when you were pushing me away. I love him." I cupped Dimitri's face as he sucked in a breath. "I love you too! I will always love you, but I can't do that to him. You're so amazing! You will have no trouble finding someone else. Now you won't have to worry about the teacher-student issue anyway. Tasha wants you. You should take her up on the offer. Have children." I gulped. Even if I was pushing him away, the thought of him in Tasha's arms was still foreign to me.

He looked at me with those breathtakingly sad eyes and forced a smile on his face. "I understand. You are with someone else. Honour is important to me, and I cannot keep it if I am taking another man's girlfriend. You were right to do that after the way I have treated you since I was restored." He pushed my hand away from his cheek and turned to leave. The door of the hotel room closed and I succumbed to the tears that were burning my eyes…