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“It’s gone.”
She flinched. “I burned it.”
“You did?”
“I didn’t know how to deal with the loss inside me. I was angry and sad, twisted and grieving, guilty and petrified. It was best for everyone that I move somewhere with no memories of you.” She stopped suddenly and wedged a fist into her belly. Her curves beneath her swimming costume threatened to undo me. “This is so surreal. I keep having to pinch myself that this is real. That you’re truly here. That I’ve not snapped like everyone said I would, and I’m not rocking in some insane asylum talking to myself.”
My chest squeezed.
Tugging her hand, I pulled her into me and wrapped my arms around her. “I’m here. This is real. I have the same problem. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and—” I cut myself off. She didn’t need to know about the catacombs or the chair. Not yet at least. She’d see for herself the minute she removed my clothes, but in this fragile moment, I wanted to be strong for her. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you while you were pregnant.” I winced. “How...I mean...you were always so careful with birth control. I don’t understand how it failed.”
“The blue dragon.” She laughed under her breath. “I can laugh about it now because I have—we have—the most incredible, wonderful daughter, but I definitely underestimated the venom of that nasty little nudibranch. I was sicker than I let on, and I guess my pill failed.”
“Fuck, Neri. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have given in to you while you were ill.”
“Don’t be.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss me. “You gave me Ayla.” A darkness etched her face as she admitted. “I-I don’t know if I would be standing here if I didn’t have her. And that eats me up inside because...I would never have felt this again.” She rested her fingertips over my chest. “Felt you again. Felt this overwhelming sense of rightness and home.”
I dipped my chin and kissed her deeper.
We lost track of time as we stood in the middle of the home she shared with two men and kissed away the past. Her tongue touched mine, and I licked her back. Her lips opened wider; I followed. Our breathing slowly picked up, and the lust from before returned.
Sighing heavily, she sank back down to her heels and blinked up at me. Dreamy and teary but luminous with love.
Love that’d lasted five years of distance and despair.
“Seni seviyorum, Nerida.”
“I love you, Aslan. So damn much.” Looking at her hand on my chest, she didn’t speak for a moment before murmuring, “I know we need to talk. I know there are things you need to tell me and me to tell you, but...I’m not ready. A part of me already knows what you’re going to say...somehow. I know that it will hurt to hear. I know I’ll probably spend the rest of my life horrified at what you’ve endured to return to me, but...I just need to exist in this for a little longer.” Her fingers dug deeper over my heart. “I need to trust this first. Trust us. Trust that no matter what happened, it doesn’t matter because we’re still here, still together. Everything else is over now...it’s in the past. You’re back where you belong.”
Her eyes widened as fear swam thick. “Wait...how are you here? Are you safe? How did you come back? I thought you were banished from ever stepping foot in Australia again.”
I clasped my hand over hers, pressing her palm to my chest. “I’m legally allowed to be here and to stay.”
“How?”
I kissed her nose. “I’ll tell you, but it’s not a simple answer. And...I feel the same way. There are things I need to tell you and things I need to ask. But...none of it truly matters because it’s done, it’s gone, and for the first time in my life, I can honestly say...I’m okay. I’m truly, incredibly okay, and that’s all because of you.”
Ducking at my knees, partially aware of the strangeness of my bracing prosthetic and the ease at which I’d grown used to it, I kissed her again. It was too easy to love her. Too easy to want her. Far, far too hard to pull away and whisper, “I-I need you to know, I’m not expecting anything tonight. I understand if you need time, canim. I’m happy to do whatever you want as long as I get to do it with you.”
She smiled softly beneath my lips. “Here I was afraid that dragging you into my room was too soon. That you’d think I only wanted you for your body.”
I chuckled and hid my slight flinch. “My body—what’s left of it—is yours. It always has been. Always will be.”
Her eyes tightened with questions. I waited for her to ask, but she swallowed them down and turned on her heel.
Taking my hand, she tugged me toward the corridor. The wide space was lit by a strip of lighting along the skirting board, revealing doors equally spaced. “That’s Ayla’s room. Family bathroom. Eddie and Teddy’s room. And this...” She pulled me over the threshold of a grey-walled, beachy space. Coral chandelier, shaggy cream carpets, and the scent of salt and wind as if she’d washed her white sheets in the sea. “This is mine.”
I drank in her room.
I imagined her here, thinking of me while I thought of her.
But then, I froze.
I tripped to the side of her bed and snatched up a photo.
A photo of me in a lion onesie when I was a baby. I’d seen the same one on Cem’s desk. Spinning around, I demanded, “How do you have this?”
Fucking hell, he’d been playing games with her too.
