He looked at Rose, his gaze steady but hollow. “I swore I would never be that man. That I would never let anyone have that power over me, or over anyone else. I thought it was a noble vow. I see now that it was cowardice.”
He took a breath, shuddered it out. “When you said you loved me, I panicked. Not because I doubted you, but because I believed you. And I believed that if I let myself love you back, I would destroy you the way my father destroyed my mother.”
Rose’s hand trembled. She set the glass aside, unsure whether to be furious or undone.
Felix moved toward her, slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal. “I could not say it then. But I have to say it now, before it’s too late.”
He knelt before her—actually knelt, as if supplicating—and took her hands in his. “I love you, Rose,” he said, voice breaking. “I love you in the only way I know how. I am terrified of it. I am clumsy and cruel and hopeless at the business, but it’s true. I love you.”
Rose could not speak. The tears she thought she’d exhausted came rushing back, hot and angry.
Felix pressed her hands to his lips. “I know I have no right to ask for forgiveness. But I am asking, anyway. I will spend the rest of my life asking if that’s what it takes.”
She pulled her hands free, but only to cradle his face in her palms. She traced the line of his jaw, the old scar at his temple, the wildness in his eyes. “I don’t want an apology,” she said. “I just want you.”
He closed his eyes, a silent benediction.
“Then you have me,” he said.
The fire crackled. Somewhere above, the sound of Lizzie’s laughter filtered down the corridor.
Rose leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his. “You are a fool,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“And so am I.”
They sat in front of the fire for a long time, neither willing to move. Rose was the first to break, brushing her eyes with the heel of her hand and shifting to sit cross-legged. Felix remained kneeling, hands fisted on his thighs, the image of a man who had trained himself to endurance and found it wanting.
He spoke quietly at first, as if to himself. “When I was small, before everything… my mother used to read to me in this room. Always the same book: a Greek myth, the one where the king builds a labyrinth and then can never find his way out. She said there was a lesson in it, that sometimes the things you build to keep yourself safe are what end up trapping you inside. I didn’t understand then. I do now.”
Rose listened; her chest tight. She had not known this about him, the boy who’d been hidden under layers of bruised pride and studied arrogance.
“My father was a master of the polished surface. To the world, he was all wit and effortless charm; he had a way of making anyone feel they were the only soul in a room. But that warmth was a curated lie. He used it to beckon people in, and once the door was shut, he simply withdrew the light.” Felix’s voice dropped lower, rougher. “My mother loved him regardless. Or perhaps she was simply caught in the snare. She would keep a candle lit for him every night, even when the whole of London knew whose bed he was truly in. She waited, and she made her pathetic excuses, and when he finally deigned to return, she would smile and pretend the house wasn’t freezing.”
He paused for a moment, then let out a long breath. “That was the lesson I learned: that love is little more than waiting for a door that never opens, and then feigning a smile when it finally does. It is a long, slow surrender, Rose. I vowed never to be the one waiting, nor the one who forced the wait.”
He laughed, the sound hollow as an empty shell. “I thought I could do better. I thought if I just refused to care, it would all pass over me. That if I never let anyone in, no one could use me as a lever, a weapon, or a shield.”
He looked up at her then, eyes bright and rimmed red. “And then you came, and you made it so easy to forget. You loved that child with every splinter of yourself, even when she was not yours to keep. And you—” His voice caught. “You made me want things I’d spent a lifetime despising.”
Rose reached out and touched his hair, carded her fingers through the dark strands. He let her, his shoulders slumping as if he’d been unmoored.
“When you said you loved me, it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. I was terrified. I thought, if I let this happen, it would all end in ruin. Because that’s what it always does, in my family.” He swallowed, forced the words out. “And I didn’t want to ruin you. I didn’t want to turn you into her, waiting and waiting for a love that only ever took.”
He reached for her hands and entwined their fingers. “But I see now that by trying to avoid it, I did exactly that. I made you wait. I made you believe you weren’t enough.”
The dam broke then, and Rose let the tears come. She was not even sure what she was grieving: his lost childhood, her own loneliness, the collective inheritance of broken promises and hollow affection.
She pulled her hands from his only to cup his face, to force him to look at her. “You were wrong,” she said. “You were so, so wrong. I did wait, but it wasn’t the waiting that hurt. It was the not knowing if you ever wanted me at all.”
Felix closed his eyes. “I did. From the first moment, even when I pretended not to.”
“Then why—” Rose began, but he silenced her with a shake of his head.
“Because I’m a coward,” he admitted. “Because I mistook fear for wisdom. Because I thought distance would keep you safe when all it did was make us both miserable.”
She stroked his cheek, feeling the roughness of his stubble, the softness under his eyes. “Words are nice,” she said, “but you know what would matter more?”
