“You brought life back into that place,” he rasped. “Not because you tried to, but simply because you exist in it. You made the stables feel like they mattered again. You made Tempest trust people again. You made me start thinking there might be something worth staying for that I had not ruined yet.”
Anne’s expression shifted slightly at that, something uncertain flickering across her face.
Dorian’s hands tightened at his sides, before he dropped to his knees in front of her. Rain soaked through his clothes as he looked up at her, unguarded in a way that stripped away everything he used to hide behind.
“I am not asking you to forget what you saw,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. “I am not asking you to excuse what I did not do well enough. I am telling you that you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Anne’s breath caught, but she did not speak.
“And I would rather spend the rest of my life terrified beside you than safe without you, because safety without you is precisely what I had before I knew you, and I do not want to go back to that life. If you cannot forgive me, I will accept it.
“I will not fight you for something you no longer want. But I will not let you believe for a second that I did not choose you completely the moment I understood what you meant to me. Even when I was too afraid to say it properly. Even when I failed you in the worst possible way. I chose you—Ichooseyou.”
The rain filled the silence that followed, but the aching chasm between them seemed to have shrunk.
For a moment, Dorian remained on his knees in the rain, as though the weight of what he had said had anchored him too firmly to move. The storm continued raging around them, but he no longer registered it, his attention focused entirely on Anne as she stood above him.
He did not expect her to reach for him. But when she did, her hand closed around his arm with firm certainty, and she pulled him up with a strength that surprised him.
“Inside,” she said sharply. “You are soaked through. If you stay out here any longer, you will be ill.”
Dorian blinked once, as though the instruction itself had taken longer to register than anything he had just confessed.
“Anne—”
“Inside,” she repeated, more firmly this time.
He followed almost without thought as she guided him over the threshold and shut the door against the storm. Warmth hit him immediately, but it barely registered. He was still watching her, still waiting for something to confirm whether what he had said had reached her at all.
Voices approached from the hallway, and her mother appeared at the far end, taking in the scene with immediate concern.
“Anne, what is going—Your Grace! Are you well?”
“Not now,” Anne said quickly, not turning away from Dorian. “Please. Give us a moment.”
Her mother hesitated, looking between them, but Anne did not waver. After a brief pause, she withdrew, the sound of her footsteps fading down the corridor.
Anne studied Dorian for a long moment, as though assessing the reality of him standing there, soaked and exhausted and no longer hiding anything from her. Then she reached for his hand and did not let go as she led him through the house. They did not speak while they walked.
The silence between them felt different, though Dorian did not understand why that was. He had never quite been able to read her, and while he wished that he had, he also had to admit that it was one of the most thrilling things about her.
She ushered him into a smaller room away from the main hall and closed the door behind them, shutting out the noise of the estate and the storm alike. For a moment, she simply stood there, still holding his hand, as if she were gathering everything she had not yet allowed herself to say.
Dorian did not move. He did not speak. He only watched her, waiting. When she finally did speak, her voice was quieter than before but steadier.
“I did not come back here thinking I would see you like this.”
Dorian’s throat tightened slightly. “I did not come here thinking I would survive you not hearing what I have to say.”
Anne’s fingers loosened slightly around his, but she did not let go. “I have been trying,” she said slowly, “to make myself believe that leaving you was the only way to stop myself from falling into something that would break me.”
Dorian closed his eyes briefly, but he did not interrupt.
Anne continued, her voice tightening just a little. “And I kept telling myself that what I saw in that room was proof I was right, and that you would always hesitate when it mattered most. I told myself I could not love someone who already believed they would fail me.”
Dorian opened his eyes again, staring at her intently.
Anne’s grip tightened on his hand slightly. “But I have been here alone, and I have not stopped loving you.”
