I’m not sure how long I lie there, but when I open my eyes again, Mia is still hovering over the bed. Her beautiful face is pale and battling through a myriad of emotions.
“Mia…”
“I’m sorry,” the words burst out of her with alarming volume. “You shouldn’t have jumped in front of the knife.”
“I wasn’t about to let you die,” I counter firmly. “You should have left when I told you to.”
She shakes her head. “I wasn’t about to let you die either.”
“Has anyone ever told you how stubborn you are?”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a hypocrite?”
She smiles, and it breaks something within me to watch as this pushes her over the edge. Her hand clamps over her mouth, her shoulders shaking. I want to hold her so desperately. The longing is more painful than the stab wound in my side.
“I’m s-sorry. I’ll go.”
“No, please.” The words feel oddly familiar on my tongue. “Stay with me.”
She hesitates a moment, her eyes bright with tears, before turning to switch off the lights. The relief of the feeling of the bed dipping as she slides in beside me is unparalleled.
The darkness offers us something more than a reprieve from the horrors of the day—it’s a space where actions feel less consequential. My arm slides around her shoulders, bringing her as close to my body as I can manage.
She must think so, too, as she doesn’t protest, gently burying her head into my shoulder.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” I confess into the darkness. “When you attacked Rubio, I thought I was going to have to watch you die.”
“Leon…” A warm hand rests itself against my cheek.
“I don’t think I would survive it.”
A thumb brushes against my skin. “Sleep. I promise I’ll still be here in the morning.”
She stays. She stays the whole day. Stays the next day, too. At some point, I think she must have left because her clothes changed. When I ask her about it, she tells me she moved a few things into her room.
She doesn’t sleep there, though. Every night, she fusses over my wound and lingers by the bed until I utter those same words again.
“Stay with me.”
And she turns off the light and slides next to me.
It’s both the most glorious experience and the most brutal. To have her so close, yet so unfairly far.
Rationally, I know it’s the guilt that makes her stay. I know it’s her sense of duty and obligation.
But in the fragile truce between us, it’s so, so easy to imagine it could be something more.
She tells me her father confessed to threatening her himself. I hadn’t thought Marco would have it in him, but the act had clearly left a painful smear on their relationship.
I don’t pry. I don’t ask any more than she’s willing to share. But there’s this traitorous thought that screamswhat are you waiting for?
She lies in my bed every night. I feel her warmth buried in my side. I feel her heartbeat. She’s alive and well and her heart is beating and beating. She’s safe. It’s enough to drive me mad with longing. My self-control champs at the bit as I reign it into submission.
The following week, Teo visits with an update. Of course, that update is that thereisno update. Only that the Cartel has made a retreat and that our marriage is now common knowledge.
“You’re both likely at the top of their hit list,” Teo explains as he leaves. “I suggest you lie low for a while.”
I wave him off. It’s not as if I can do much else. The wound is healing well, but Mia has been treating me like I’ve been made of glass, refusing to let me do much more than walk down the corridor and back.
