Thank you all for reading. There's a few more chapters and then Corinna, Erik, and their story will be complete. Please leave feedback! Thanks for reading!

Noir54

As much as Erik wanted to erase Christine from his memory there was no mistaking how integral a part she had played in his life over the past fifteen years. Though she didn't know it she had kept him alive with her voice, with the promise of friendship, with the glimmer of hope that she could care for him.

Night after night he would come to her. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her away and so he remained behind the mirror, sending her nothing but his voice. Having no sense of day or night, he stayed with her for as long as she could keep her eyes open.

When he was certain that she slept he would tell her the same thing every night. "Sleep well, Christine. I love you, my angel."

Each time as he walked the corridors and stairs he promised himself that this was the last night he would masquerade as an angel. He hated lying to her but he was afraid she would recoil when she saw him, when she saw that he had a mask and cape, not wings and a halo. She would hate and fear him for lying to her for years.

Tomorrow, he said to himself each time he left her, tomorrow he would reveal himself as a man of flesh and blood. He would confess his sins to her and beg her forgiveness.

As he lay in bed alone he convinced himself that she would forgive him. She knew him despite never having seen his face. And she cared for him. There was no other way to explain how willing she had been to welcome him to her. Each day he reaffirmed his beliefs that she could love him. All he needed to do was show her the man behind the voice. He needed to make her aware of the person who lulled her to sleep and helped her train her voice.

She had been his only plan, his only focus other than his opera. She had been what made him want to wake, what put him to sleep with pleasant dreams. Christine Daae had been a deity, one that he worshipped faithfully for years.

Erik's thoughts of Christine dissipated as Corinna shifted closer to him. She placed her hand over his and he drew away, mortified by his memories concerning Christine. Months had passed since he had last seen her. She should no longer be on his mind. She had left him. In the end she had left him for her childhood sweetheart. He had wasted his years on her. As she had wasted her years on him.

"I won't think of her. I'll do everything in my power to forget her," Erik whispered. "From this day forward I swear to you, Corinna, I'll stop. I'll stop."

"You can't," she replied.

Erik exhaled hard. He shook his head. "I will. For you I will make myself forget her. I'll…I'll do anything, anything at all to forget who she was."

He saw Corinna shake her head before he turned and faced away from her. "It's not that simple," she said. "You cannot erase someone who was important to you."

"She's not important to me."

"I know how you felt for her. I was there when you were on stage together. Everyone felt it, the connection you felt with her, the way she felt for you—"

"She felt nothing for me."

"Erik, please. I know how much you loved her."

His eyes stung, his throat painfully constricting. After all the mistakes he had made in his life he couldn't allow Corinna to think that he still wanted Christine.

"It doesn't mean I don't love you. Because I do love you. If you knew how I felt for you—"

"I know how you feel for me," she said before he finished. "Each time you look at me, each time you say my name I can feel it. At night when you're beside me I know that you care for me."

Erik turned to face her and nodded, finding relief in her words. She smiled wanly and reached for his hand again, pulling him beside her in bed.

"There is something you should know," she said quietly as he rested beside her.

His stomach tightened, but he nodded nonetheless and moved her hair away from her face so that he could look into her eyes.

"You know how much I love you," she said as she inched closer. "You know how long I searched for you and you understand how I never gave up hope that I would find you."

"Yes," he answered, suddenly wanting her to just lay with him, to forget whatever she wanted to tell him. He avoided her gaze as he curled a strand of her hair around his finger.

"I love you more than anyone else," she said. "And I don't want to hurt you."

Erik's legs tensed. She was going to wound him worse than anyone else had ever done. He could see it in her eyes when he glanced at her, finding bravery for only a moment before his cowardice forced him to look away.

He wanted to get up and leave the room before she could continue, before she could twist the blade through his heart. She was going to leave him. She was going to tell him that she couldn't stay with him, that her search was in vain and that the years had been too long. He had changed too much for her to tolerate. The only woman who had given him something emotionally and physically was about to leave him.

Paralyzed by his deepest fears, Erik felt himself begin to shake. He grit his teeth to keep from crying out, to stop the howling he felt about to emerge from the deepest, darkest, most unhealed portion of his soul.

He forced his hand away, balled it into a fist, and braced himself for her final words.

"There was another," she said at last.

Erik's mouth dropped open. He exhaled, brow furrowed as he met her eye. "There was…another what?"

"Another. There was another person, another…man. In my life. Before you. I…was with him…intimately."

He had prepared himself so greatly for a death blow that he scarcely understood what she meant. He lay beside her completely speechless. She wasn't leaving him. She was confessing. She was being honest with him in a way he couldn't bring himself to be truthful with anyone.

"It was five years ago," she continued. "He was Indian and British, living in London when I first met him. We talked about Kali, about India and how we didn't feel welcome there because of our bloodlines. I came to him when I was lonely and we sat for hours in cafés. Then one day…I don't have an excuse. I thought I was in love with him. I thought I could love him, but all I could think of was that I needed to return to Paris because there was a story about the Opera Populaire and their suspicions and…" She took several deep breaths and closed her eyes, her arms crisscrossed over her chest. "It's unfair for me to be upset about Christine when I haven't been faithful to you."

Erik lay in perfect silence. She had been twenty-five when she had given herself to another. By all accounts she should have been married with children clinging to her knees at that age. She should have been someone's wife, someone's beautiful, happy wife. But she had remained unmarried, without children, without love.

"Please say something," Corinna said at last.

"I have nothing to say," he said blankly.

Corinna pursed her lips and nodded. "I'm sorry, Erik."

"For what?" he asked as he adjusted his pillow beneath his head.

She looked uncomfortable as she lay beside him, and Erik noticed for the first time that she had moved further away.

"I didn't wait for you," she said sadly.

Her words made him smile. "You're here now," he replied.

Corinna began to cry as she rolled closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. She buried her face in his shoulder and he held her tightly finding he didn't feel the bitter sting of jealousy when she said she had loved another. Her past didn't matter, which gave him hope that Corinna was not concerned about his affection for Christine, either. They were together now and that was all that concerned him.

Cupping her face in his hands, Erik brushed her tears away and kissed her on the lips.

"You are everything to me," he whispered. 'Everything important to me."

She kissed him back and moved in closer until her leg was between his and her fingers were slowly unbuttoning his shirt. He felt the warmth of her fingers graze his chest as he wriggled from his shirt and settled in closer to her, deftly unlacing her dress.

"You're the only one I want to be with," she said between kisses. "You're the only man I ever want in my life."

Erik broke away from her kisses and searched her face. "You're…you're the only one I've ever…loved like this," he said, feeling sweat bead on his brow.

She understood his meaning and nodded, unwilling to talk when she had him so close to her. She pressed her bare stomach to his and ran her foot down his pant leg. "I need you. I need to feel you."

Her words instantly aroused him, and he deepened their kiss as they struggled to undress one another, both refusing to allow their lips to part. Corinna braced his shoulders, easing him onto his back, her hands holding his wrists.

"Let me do this," she said once he tensed.

She wanted control. Before he had the opportunity to agree or disagree she mounted him, her hands moving to his chest as she eased onto his hips. He couldn't help but watch her as she made love to him. His wide hands gripped her hips, ventured along her stomach where his thumb circled her belly button, fingers stroking the hardened curve of her abdomen. He traced along her ribs and explored her breasts as the tempo of their lovemaking increased, as she danced closer and closer to climax. With each breath he surrendered and allowed her dominance, allowed her to show him how she loved him.

Watching her brought him ease, and as she sat hard against his hips he climaxed deep within her, hearing her cry out softly as she lowered onto him. He pulled her into his embrace and kissed her deeply as he ran his hands through her hair. She was his. There was no other man that would claim her and he knew when he looked into her eyes that there was no woman he would ever think was as beautiful as she.

"Marry me," he said suddenly.

Corinna looked at him, startled by his words.

"Yes," she said without question as she rested in his arms. She giggled softly as she kissed him again. "When?"

"Today."

"There's only an hour left of this day."

"Call a priest."

Corinna laughed as she looked him in the eye and shook her head. "Tomorrow," she breathed into his ear. "Tomorrow night. Here. In our home."

Erik nodded. "I'll buy you a ring in the morning."

"I have a ring. My mother's wedding band. I would like to wear it."

He kissed her again. "Then I will put your mother's ring on your finger and make you my wife."

"There's nothing I want more in the world than to be your wife."

And those were the words he had lived to hear.