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It was so much easier to believe that it was a crush.

Are you in love with him?

It would have been a lot nicer if she had just told herself she thought he was hot.

Are you in love with him?

No. And how would she even know? How was she even supposed to know what love was? The only thing she had ever had was Alex and Adonis, and it was the only thing that looked like family or caring or anything even close. But being in love… She had never known it to help anyone. She had never seen it matter.

It had never given her anything. It had never given anything to anyone she knew.

It felt like such a foolish thing.

But if she looked back on every moment of her life she couldn’t deny that he was in every important one.

The moment they’d met…

She and Alex had been wandering around in an alleyway, and there he was. Tall, strong. Frightening for all that he was young. He had a heavy accent and he’d looked at them with dark, stormy eyes.

He’d helped them find food. He’d offered to share shelter.

She’d asked him later why he was nice.

“You don’t kill little baby animals,” he’d said and she’d wondered if it was a language gap. But now she thought that was exactly what he’d meant. He’d seen them as foundlings.

He’d pitied them. But then he’d also stayed with them.

He’d tended her wounds. He’d protected her. Become a safe place for her fantasies, her hopes, her dreams.

He was the father of her baby.

You are in love with him.

Those words hit, clear as a bell just as they arrived at the château, on the verge of the garden, where he waited for her.

She looked up at Alex. “I think I do love him.”

Her brother smiled, just slightly. “Yeah. I figured.”

“I hate that. Why did you know something about me that I didn’t?”

“Sometimes it’s easier to see things from a different vantage point, Esme. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I think there are a lot of things wrong with me,” she said. “That’s the problem. There are maybe too many things wrong with him and with me.”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t think you’re broken.”

“How would you know? You’re not any better.”

“Fair.” Except she knew right then she didn’t want Alex to be broken. So she understood what he was saying. She didn’t want any of them to be. But that didn’t necessarily change the reality.

“Ready?”

“Well. I’m not choosing anything else. So I have to be.”

He gripped her arm, and they walked through the doors, outside. The air was soft and lovely, the sunlight filtering through the canopy of ivy golden. It was like a magical fairyland. She just wished that she could forget she was Esme, and he was Adonis. She wished that she could pretend they were two people with no baggage. Like wedding cake toppers. Nothing before or after this day. Nothing to worry about. But he was Adonis. And she was Esme.

Her heart began to beat harder as they kept on walking. And then he came into view. There were guests there too. There was a whole aisle. But all she could see was him. Standing at the head of the pink arbor, looking like perfection in a black suit, the angular lines of his face so beautiful. So familiar.