Page 204

The boy that she loved, the man she still loved. All one. All right there.

He had stitched her back together when she was young.

It was so much easier to stitch up a hand than it was to stitch up all the broken things inside of you.

She wished it worked that way. A needle and thread, and a little bit of elbow grease.

It was so beautiful that she was marrying him. She wanted to weep with it. It was so terrifying that she was marrying him. She wanted to weep with it.

But all of the things that she had been fighting with herself about before she had come out here suddenly seemed pale. Small. It all seemed frivolous. Really. She didn’t need to meet another man. She couldn’t imagine marrying him anyway. It could only ever be Adonis. Only ever him. That was just the way of it.

Adonis was the only man that she could ever see doing this with. Raising a child with. It was improbable, definitely. It was foolish, maybe.

But it was also what she wanted. Really and truly.

It was what she needed.

He was what she needed.

It didn’t feel like it was for the party. The spectacle of the wedding. Their future child.

It felt like something deeper. When they reached Adonis, Alex stopped, released his hold on her arm and extended his hand to shake Adonis’s.

Adonis complied, and the swell of emotion that she felt seeing them together again almost took her breath away.

And then it was only her and Adonis. And all of the people watching. And the officiant.

But it felt like it was only the two of them. Standing there, looking at each other.

That she was pregnant served as a signal to everybody there that there was attraction between them.

There had been.

She thought about the moment in the entryway of the house. Their house.

There was still attraction. They had decided not to do anything about it, but it was still there. Burning bright.

She didn’t know how to make sense of it, though. Not right now.

It was like what they had been to each other before that night, the way they had been in each other’s arms then, and who they were now were three distinctly different versions of themselves.

The idea of blending those three made her feel off-kilter. Uncertain.

It also made her feel a deep, longing ache. Like there were answers there. Like it could be something. No. She couldn’t think that way. She had to think of the baby. Had to think of the family that they would be. Wasn’t that enough?

She thought about the conversation they’d had on the balcony. About being so rich and having all these problems.

Was she being greedy? She was already getting a family. A family like the kind she had never imagined having.

Wasn’t that enough? Having a beautiful house, having all this money. Being in a position where she could be a good mother. Being with a man who could be a good father.

What was it inside of her that always wanted more?

That was pushing, pushing for everything?

It was foolish.

She was a fool.