His face tightens.
“I promise.”
She reaches for him with her good arm.
He gathers her carefully, so careful with the arm she holds against herself, so gentle I almost break apart watching it.
“I knew you were coming,” she cries into his shirt.
Maverick closes his eyes and presses his mouth to her hair.
“Always.”
Then his eyes open and find mine.
The rage is still there.
I think it always will be.
But beneath it is something worse.
Fear.
The kind that almost killed him before he ever made it down these stairs.
“Bella,” he whispers.
“I’m okay.”
His gaze drops to my hidden hands.
“No,” he says softly. “You’re not.”
I try to smile.
It doesn’t work.
“Livy first.”
His jaw flexes.
Then he nods once, because he knows I need him to agree.
“Livy first,” he says. “Then you. Then Stefano.”
“And Rory?”
Maverick’s eyes don’t leave mine.
“Rory belongs to me now.”
“Uncle Spike can carry me,” Livy says. “Right?”
Spike’s face softens in a way most people would never believe possible.
“Of course, sweetheart.”
Reluctantly, Maverick releases her with a kiss to the top of her head.
