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"You never need an excuse for that," I murmured, sinking my head back into the couch and closing my eyes as I enjoyed the feeling of his deft fingers working my feet. For a moment, the quiet hung in the air between us, but I could feel him looking at me.
Opening my eyes, I caught him gazing at me and, for a moment, I was pretty certain I could see what my mother had been talking about when she had described what she’d seen when he’d come to save her. That care for me, deep, profound, as though he would have done anything he could to protect me, to give me the life that I wanted.
"What is it?" I asked him softly, and he shook his head.
"I’m just … glad you’re safe," he murmured back. "With everything that’s happened, it’s been hard to believe you ever would be."
"I know." I sighed. "But if it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have ever gotten out of that marriage with Gregor. I still would have been stuck with him now …"
I shuddered at the thought but pushed it quickly from my mind. I didn’t have to live in that kind of fear anymore; that was the point.
"It doesn’t matter," I added, shaking my head. "It’s done now. He’s done. And I get to look forward to a future. With you."
He grinned at me and then paused for a moment, cocking his head at me as though he was considering something. I raised my eyebrows.
"What is it?"
"I wanted to talk to you about that," he replied, squeezing my feet in his hands and stroking gently up my leg.
"About what?”
"Our future."
I loved hearing him say those words, as though they were the most natural things in the world. I wanted it to stay that way. Our future, the one we shared together, the one we chose together.
"What about it?" I asked.
"I want you to do what’s right for you," he told me, his eyes sincere as he gazed at me. "Because I know you didn’t always have that choice. With your father, and then Gregor, you had to … You had to do what you thought was best for other people. And I never want you to feel that way with me. I want you to be here, to be having this baby, because it’s what you want."
My heart melted a little, hearing him say it out loud because it meant he really got it. He wasn’t just with me because he wanted me, he was with me because he saw what I could become. He saw all the potential that I had wasted over the years, all the ways the world had forced me into certain shapes to try and control me, and he knew how much it had killed me to be trapped like that. But here, now? He wanted more for me. He wanted me to choose him, this, our life together.
As if I ever would have done anything different.
I reached over, cupping his face in my hand, just like I had done that first night we had been together, when he had knelt at my feet and told me what he wanted for me. And he had proved it, every step of the way; proved that he would make the choices that were best for me and my family, that he would throw himself into danger if it meant keeping me and the people I loved safe.
"I want you," I murmured to him. "I want this baby. I want … I want to make a life with you, Alex. I choose that. I always will."
His eyes softened as I spoke, and he turned his head to plant a kiss at the center of my palm.
"I love you, Morgan," he told me.
"I love you too," I replied, not even having to think twice about it. I did love him. I had loved him for a long time, longer than I could even remember—he was my man, and I was his woman. And we were just at the beginning of building a family together, a life we both wanted. Even if it wasn’t the one we had expected.
I leaned over and kissed him properly, our lips coming together in a soft embrace that sent tingles running down the length of my spine. I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to feeling his mouth on me like that. I didn’t want to. I always wanted it to feel this good.
And, as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, I smiled, snuggling into his chest. Nothing could break us apart now. The world had already thrown its best at us, and it had failed. We were still together.
Right where we belonged.
Epilogue – Morgan
"Hey, baby girl," I cooed to Isla as I scooped her out of her crib and pulled her into my arms. "Your grandmom’s here to take you out for the day. Does that sound good?"
Isla gurgled back at me, and I giggled, pressing a kiss against her chubby cheek. At six months old, she was hardly able to talk, but that didn’t matter. She had the rest of her life to tell me what was on her mind, and I was raising her to be as forthright and outgoing as possible.
"She awake?" Alex asked as he ducked into her bedroom. This nursery had been the first place we’d renovated when we had purchased this house, a beautiful old townhouse on the edge of Bianco; it had been falling apart when we had first moved in, but I didn’t mind.
"She is," I replied, and he reached over to lift our daughter out of my arms. She reached out for him at once, grabbing a lock of his curly dark hair in her tiny, chubby hand. Even though she didn’t have much in the way of hair yet, I was sure she was going to have the same mop as her father, judging by the few strands that had already started to sprout from her head.
