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“Because,Timonitsa mou, you are light and you are hope, and there is nothing I cannot do when I put my mind to it. Only look around you.” He kept holding the ring out between them, his gaze locked to hers as if he would never look away again. “If you give me the chance, I will spend my life trying to be the man you make me when I am with you. I will learn to be as you are, with the courage of a hundred fearless lions, prepared to fight for even as dark and twisted a heart as mine. And so sure, despite everything, that you would win. How could this not inspire me? I will dedicate myself to making you as happy as you can be, and making up for what I have put you through. I will leave my past where it belongs. Because what I want is the future. Every possible future. With you. And I promise you that I will love you, as best as I can, until I draw my final breath.”
He realized his heart was pounding. His head felt alarmingly light. “If...” He cleared his throat. He dared to hope. “If you will have me.”
And then he waited, his whole existence in the balance. In her hands.
For a long moment Timoney only looked at him. A great deal as if she was seeing a ghost.
And then his heart dropped, for her beautiful eyes filled with tears.
And he thought,There it is, then.
For there could be no arguing. There was no point in temper. It was one thing to bluster and carry on. He was good at that.
But it was another to offer his heart, unadorned, and have that be rejected.
Crete understood in that moment not only how it was that people died of broken hearts, but how easy it would be to succumb. Because how was he to go on with a heart that no longer beat?
But then, before he could even think about lowering his arms, Timoney’s beautiful face broke wide open into that life-altering smile of hers.
Wider now. Brighter.
Then she was rushing toward him, hurtling herself into his arms.
Crete caught her, bearing her down with him onto the hard floor and turning so he could cushion her. She was so busy pressing kisses all over his face, his neck, that it took him a beat, then another, to hear what she was saying with every touch of her lips to whatever part of him she could reach.
“Yes,” she whispered, fervent and fierce and sure. So verysure. “Yes, I will marry you. Yes, I will love you. Yes, Crete.Yes.”
And so it was there, lying on the floor surrounded by his first Christmas ever and all the bars of his prison busted wide open, that he slid that ring onto her finger.
Then started his most important project yet: loving her forever.
Which, it turned out, he was as good at as he was everything else he touched.
Because Timoney was light. She was hope made real. He was grateful for her every day of his life.
But he was still Crete Asgar.
