Page 127 of Cruel Lies

I stop breathing. He's never said it. I haven't, either. We've circled it for weeks, all these things that aren't quite the three most important words. But now, they've been spoken.

"Say it again," I beg in a whisper.

"I love you." He presses his forehead to mine. "I've loved you since before I knew your name. I just didn't have a word for it until now."

My eyes flood. "I love you, too, Ronan Akov."

He kisses me, and though it's more than gentle, it's all straining with all the things that it contains. We start to move together in the moonlight with the lake breathing outside the window.

It's different from every other time. There's nowhere to hide and nothing to prove and nothing to survive. It's just us, face to face, his hand cradling the back of my head, my leg hitched over his hip, and every stroke says the thing he already said out loud.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

There's no condom this time, nor would I want there to be. I want nothing between us as I say it back with my whole body. I hold his eyes when he orders me to, and I fall apart around him. He comes, too, his face buried in my neck, my name andkotyonokand more words I don't know all tangled together against my skin.

When it's done, he opens the window so the summer breeze and the orchestra of cicadas can come drifting in. Owls hoot, a few of them, and I giggle.

"What's so funny?" he asks.

"A parliament," I murmur.

"What?"

"A group of owls. It's called a parliament. Hayden taught me that."

He laughs. "Your son knows everything."

"He sure likes to think he does."

We're silent for a while. His hand moves up and down my spine.

"I meant it," he says into the dark. "What I said."

"Which part?"

"All of it. But I meant the part to Isabella, too. I'll do my best to stay."

I close my eyes. "You don't have to promise a six-year-old forever, Ronan."

"I know I don't have to." His arm tightens around me. "That's not why I did it."

I don't have anything to say to that. It's too big and too good and I'm too full of it. So I put my head back down on his chest, right over his heart, and I think,This is the thing I was fighting for. Not the winning. Not the revenge.

This. Right here.

His phone hums from somewhere across the room. He doesn't move to get it.

"You're not going to look?" I ask.

"No," he says. "Not tonight. Nothing out there matters more than this."

I believe him, because he's never once given me a reason not to. I let the buzzing fade back beneath the sounds of the crickets and the owls and the water lapping at the shore. With that music in my ears, I fall asleep in his arms.

Happiness looks like this.