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He had to make this choice.
It had to be of his own will, or he’d never forgive her. Never forget she’d taken all of his dreams away from him.
Again.
Or just like the last time, he would hate her.
Her hands shaking from the cold of the spring waters—from the chill creeping along every crevice of her body and sinking deep into her gut as she watched the mania seep over him—she set her fingers to the wet belly of her dress.
“Except…”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Except what?”
She let the forced smile dissolve from her face. “Except I don’t want any of that, Wes.”
“You what?”
“I don’t want any of that. I understand that now. I want you. I’ve always wanted you. I never needed the title or the money or the power. I lived without any of that for years. I’ve lived with the looks of pity. Lived with the scorn of people who were once called my friends. I’ve lived all of that, and it doesn’t matter. You and Morty were always the only two things that mattered to me. What I learned during the last seven years is that I don’t care about the rest of it. Just you two.”
Her hand went to her forehead, pushing back wet strands of hair from sticking to her skin. “And that blasted box took Morty from me. I cannot let it take you too.”
“You what?”
“I cannot let it take you—take us into the hell of it. Everything that you said happened to Morty—everything that I watched happen to Morty—I can see it in your eyes right now. See the madness. And I could not bear it if the box took you as it did my brother.”
He jabbed a step backward. “Laney, you don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t understand what we can have with this.”
Her heel slammed onto the bridge, the echo of it sending birds to caw, skittering into the sky. “I don’t give a damn what we can have with that box. I want you, Wes. You and only you. I have you and I have everything.” Slowly, she lifted her arm, her fingers stretched out to him, palm up. “Give me the box, Wes. I need you to let me hold it for us.”
His left hand flew up between them as he took another step backward. “But, Laney—”
“You don’t need it, Wes. You are more than enough. You don’t need the title or the money or the power. You’ve proven you are a man that is formidable and smart and capable and strong without all of the wealth and title. You’ve scraped your way into a life to be proud of. You’ve proven you are what a man should be. Honorable and kind and compassionate and able to love. Love me.”
His raised hand drifted downward, falling to his side.
She took one tiny step forward. “You’re beautiful because you’re solid in the storm. You always have been. My rock. The one that I have always been able to hold onto—whether you were with me or not. And you will always be that, with or without the box. I take you either way, but I prefer it to be us and only us. No box. No society. Nothing but what we create together.”
On the balls of her feet, she dared another step forward, her voice low, broken. “I don’t want a life of society and their petty judgements. I don’t want the past. I want what you spoke of—what our life together could be. But you need to give up the past—everything that was taken from you. You need to give it up, forget it, and move with me into what our life could be. Us, together, anywhere in the world. We will find a home. We will have children. We will breathe the same air, laugh at the same silliness, watch our children grow together until our last breaths. You just need to let the past go—let the box go, Wes. Please. Choose me. Choose us. Now, in this moment. Choose us.”
His eyes closed.
Her breath moved in and out, ragged through her throat, marking the seconds that would determine the rest of her life.
Determine her happiness. Her love. Her future.
His eyes didn’t open, but his right hand clutching the box lifted, holding it out to her.
A jagged breath into his lungs, and his words rumbled into the air between them, coarse. “It’s always been you, Laney. Always. You have always been my choice.”
She took three steps forward, her hand reaching out, touching the edge of the box, gripping it.
He let go.
She pulled the box toward her, swinging the top closed and slipping it into her wet pocket, hiding it from his sight.
He opened his eyes to her. The madness in them, gone. Just like that.
Love. Only love left in his dark hazel eyes.
