Page 133 of The Endless Want

Relief flashes across both their faces. Then something else passes between them—something conspiratorial. Conor pushes off the wall, reaches into his jacket, and pulls out a small velvet box. Dark green. New. Untouched.

He presses it into my palm.

I stare at it.

My heart stops, then kicks forward hard enough that it hurts. “What the hell is this?”

“No more running,” Conor says, voice quiet but razor-sharp. “You’ve been half alive since the day you lost her the first time. You’ve been worse than dead since the ambush.”

Mackenzie folds her arms. “And now there’s a baby. And she’s not going to wait forever for you to get your head straight.”

I close my hand around the box, feeling its edges cut into my skin. “I just got her back.”

“Then keep her,” Conor says. “The whole damn world is trying to tear you two apart. Do something that anchors you together.”

My pulse hammers so loudly I hear it in my teeth. “You’re pushing.”

“We’re nudging,” Mackenzie corrects. “Pushing would’ve been us driving you to her safehouse and shoving the ring onto her finger ourselves.”

Despite everything, a laugh escapes me—tired, raw, but real. “You two have lost your minds.”

“Maybe,” Conor says with a shrug. “But we’re not the ones in love.”

I don’t deny it. I look at the box in my hand and let the quiet answer for me, and Mackenzie’s eyebrows climb halfway to her hairline.

“Say it once,” Conor says. “Out loud. You’ve had other people saying it for you all year.”

“I love her.” It comes out wrecked, and I don’t try to fix it. “I’ve loved her since before I was old enough to be frightened of it, and I let her walk anyway.”

Nobody says anything smart. Mackenzie looks at the ground. Conor puts a hand on my shoulder and leaves it there.

I rub a hand over my face. The weight of the box is suddenly enormous.

“She nearly—” The words cut off before I can finish. I swallow. “I thought I’d lost her. And the baby.”

“And now you haven’t,” Conor says. “So do something with that second chance.”

The idea of marriage has always felt like a dream other men got to have. Other lives. Other worlds. Not mine. Then I picture Ailish in that hospital bed, her fingers wrapped around mine, whispering don’t leave. I picture her at the safehouse, sleepy, vulnerable, trusting me to keep her safe. And I picture her belly—rounding more each week—carrying a future I never thought I’d deserve.

Maybe that’s why the idea scares me. Because I want it. Because for the first time in my life, I want something clean.

I snap the box open with my thumb.

Inside sits a simple gold band. No diamonds. No frills. Nothing flashy. Just a circle—solid, unbroken, unyielding.

Her.

Exactly her.

I close the box.

“I need to see Liam,” I say, voice low.

“No,” Mackenzie says gently. “You need to see Liam and Nadia. They’re both part of this.”

Conor nods. “You won’t get her hand without going through both. They’re a team now.”

The two of them step aside, giving me a path forward. I take it.