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“No. This is not to tease you. Livia, I am a man in hell without you. And I have... I have turned over everything we have ever said to one another in these last years. I have thought of our life, for we have shared part of a lifetime together already. Is it not amazing?”
“It is,” she said. “It is sort of amazing.”
“I am flawed. Desperately so. And I did not wish to be, because I thought the only way to rule would be if I... If I somehow sanded away every vulnerability, and made myself into a cliffside. I thought I could decide to be the perfect ruler, and then I would be. But that is not to be. Livia, I told myself that a lack of emotion was needed in order to rule that way, but... You know I loved my father.”
“Matteo...”
“It was so easy to say I hated him, but if it were so simple... Emotion would be black-and-white, then, would it not? I could choose good things, and turn away from the bad, but for me... It has all been one. I loved him. And he harmed me. Left me devastated. And mostly, I fear the pain that comes with this sort of feeling. I fear weakness. And I am weak standing before you.”
“You are not weak,” she said. “Matteo, you are the strongest man I know.”
“I am weak for you. Weak now. But I would endure this weakness a thousand times over if it meant being able to have you. I would cry out in pain and think nothing of it, for I have nothing to protect if I do not have you. Nothing. I am a fool, because I had to ask my brother what love was, and what he described to me is what we are. What we had for years. It is a life shared. A burden shared.”
“Matteo,” she whispered. “I was very, deeply afraid to be trapped in a marriage with a man who did not love me, because I knew how easy it would be for you to abandon me. But it was my conversation with Violet that... No, you would not have left me, and I know that. But what I feared was that if I gave you everything you wanted you would never... You would never heal.”
“You were right. You took the thorn out, and the rest was up to me. I had to reconcile my fears, my shortcomings. That it is not pretending I do not have them, but rather facing them head-on, and trusting that you, Livia, are the answer for all that I am not. And I will do my best to be the same for you.”
Her heart nearly burst. It was a beautiful thing, this revelation. She didn’t have to do all the healing, he carried some of it all on his own. This love was not heavy. It was a gift. Not a burden.
They did not poison one another, they gave each other the tools to heal. To be the best they could be.
“You have been.” She looked at his beloved face. “I was such a weak, bitter creature when I arrived here, and you gave me dreams again.”
“And you have given them to me. I do not want you to be my wife for the sake of the country. I do not want to have children with you for the sake of producing heirs. I want them for my sake. I want you for the sake of my own heart. Because only then... Only then will I be healed. But I have to ask you... Will you marry me, Livia?”
A question. A question she could answer, and easily.
And in that question was his true change, his true growth. Because in the question was a willingness to be vulnerable. To admit he could not control her or the world. He gave her a choice, and in that showed he was willing to fail.
For her.
But she wanted only to say yes. And she would.
“Yes,” she said.
And he swept her up in his arms and kissed her lips. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Mouse.”
And Livia knew him. Knew his heart. Had for all this time.
And she knew that he meant it, from the depths of his soul. And that his love would never run out.
