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He half rises, then sits. Grasps his hands over his thighs.
“I’m in love with you, Mia. So fucking in love with you that I don’t know what to do. I screw up, I push. But I’ll be there. Loving you. Married or not. I will take out any threat and keep you safe. But I love you. I think you’re the most fascinating woman I’ve met. You drive me insane. You make me more angry than anyone I’ve ever met. And you make me vulnerable. But you make me happy. When I’m with you, I’m whole. I want to grow old, have babies if you want them.”
My head spins slow. “If I don’t want them?”
“Fuck having babies.”
He says this so emphatically, I want to laugh. Because there’s a lightness blooming in me, one that feels like hope, and it’s a balm.
“If I can’t?”
Christian shrugs. “We adopt.”
My chest is tight, but this time it feels good. “Christian . . .”
“Mia, I want you. I love you. I probably have since I first saw you and knew you were off-limits. Love is the only reason I’ll marry you. So, I’m not going to lay down an ultimation. I’m not putting a time limit. I’m not demanding. The offer is there. To do with as you wish.”
He sounds so casual, and I know this is costing him. He’s not a man given to democracy in this way. He’s about ownership and his will and being what he is: alpha.
For me, he’s going to give me room.
And it’s hard. It’s so hard because everything I’ve held on to is not because it haunts me; I’m haunting it. Haunting the horrors is safe.
Christian isn’t safe and the safest thing in the world, all at the same time.
I put my hand to my mouth as a small sob escapes. Christian is offering me the world. He’s offering it to me to take if and when I want, and he’s placed it in the middle of us, and is stepping aside.
It’s not in him to back off completely. A man like him when he wants what’s his, when he loves, he won’t ever walk entirely away, but he’s offering me the best option he can. To give me the space, and forever if I need it.
Because he loves me, and—
I stop.
He loves me. Christian Bandoni loves me.
I can’t breathe.
Yes, he’s been saying it the entire time, but this moment is one that is burned bright inside me. It’s like a flare of light.
He loves me.
I believe it.
And when I look, all the signs are there. That’s why I fought him. Not because of the fear of being so vulnerable and naked in front of him, but the fear he’d see me and walk away.
He’s seen me and he wants to stay.
I want him, too.
“You’ll marry me?” I ask carefully, like I’m on broken glass.
He nods. “Because I love you.”
His voice is thick, full of all the will and strength it’s taking him to bend at the knee for me. And the first time in a long time, I feel beautiful. Loved. Whole.
“Christian, I love you, too.”
“You do?” He’s very still.
