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“We are both broken, eh?”
“It’s not being broken that defines us. It’s love, don’t you think?”
“Do you love me, Maximus?”
“Yes, Annick. I love you. Not like anyone ever before. Not like anything. I love you in a way I didn’t think was possible.”
“Maximus,” she said, flinging herself up off the bed and wrapping her arms around his neck. Kissing him with everything she had inside of her.
“Thank you,” he said. “For kidnapping me. I think you might’ve rescued me.”
“Well, I know for certain that you rescued me. Maximus, whatever you want to call yourself, you are mine. Nothing else matters. I know what you’ve done.” She spread her hands. “But you do not have blood on your hands. Many people were saved because of what you did. You had anger in your heart, yes. But you’re a good man, and you always were. Your anger never took you to a place where you might harm an innocent. You were never a monster. Just wounded.”
“Without all my mistakes, without all the pain, without all that I lost, I would never have made it to you. Whatever else I know to be true, I know that. You rescued me. You rescued me because of what you did. Set me free.”
“And you set me free.”
She had a strange, heavy sensation in her chest and looked toward the dresser. Her wedding bouquet was still there. She went over to it and grabbed hold of one of the flowers, breaking another blossom off. “For Stella,” she said. “You would be proud of him. You would be proud of who he is. And I will take care of him. And love him.”
“I hope you know,” he said, putting his hand over hers, “that what I feel for you isn’t the same. I loved her as a boy. I love you as a man.”
Her heart lifted. “And I hope sometimes as a monster. Because I did quite like the monster.”
“I will be whatever you wish. Your captor. Your protector. Your man. Your monster.”
“You are all those things, I think. There is no pretending. Not with me.”
“Never. And you don’t need to pretend anymore either.”
“No,” she said. And she flung herself into his arms, feeling every big thing she had done since he’d first come into her life. Hungry and happy and filled with a sharp, aching joy that made her vibrate. She wanted to lick him and fight him and kiss him all at once, and she would. She would.
“Me, I love you. And that is quite a brilliant thing.”
He cupped her chin, his eyes touching her soul. “There are no bars, Annick, not now. All I see is you.”
It was true—there were no words for the sort of pain she and Maximus had endured in their lives.
But there was love and joy that transcended language too. That could only be felt and breathed and lived. And they had that.
It made the world beautiful and magical, and bright enough to drown out all the darkness that had come before.
Always.
Forever.
EPILOGUE
MAXIMUS AND ANNICK built the most beautiful life out of the broken pieces they’d been given. It was not less. It was not secondary. It was everything. And when they welcomed their first child into the world, a boy, and Annick named him Marcus after her brother, Maximus felt joy like he’d never known before.
“You know,” Annick said, looking at him as he held his son, “you were never dead inside, Maximus. You were just protecting yourself.”
“Yes. To an extent. But I also didn’t know. There was nothing in me that could ever have been prepared for the joy that was coming.”
“Thank God for chloroform, eh?”
He chuckled, looking down at that tiny perfect life they had created, and all around at the beautiful, glittering life they had created in this world that was their own.
“Yes, Annick. Thank God for chloroform.”
