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Her eyebrows rose. “You?”
I nodded. “He was coming after you and Ayla. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Her eyes swirled with shadows. “I’m so sorry, Aslan. For all of it.” Her face twisted with despair. “I know you say it wasn’t my fault but...I’m the reason he hurt you. I’m the reason—”
“Hey.” I pulled her up and stood with her. I didn’t let her look away as I captured her chin and stared into her. “You were not the reason. Cem was. My illegal status was. You need to trust me when I say I couldn’t keep living the way I was when everything I wanted could be so easily taken away.”
My heart lurched at that truth, that constant worry.
It’d been so draining, so imprisoning.
“This is the last time you’re allowed to feel guilty, do you hear me? If you need my forgiveness, you have it. But you also have my thanks. I’ve survived the worst that could possibly happen. That constant fear, that insistent need to hide and pretend are all gone. I can be me, Neri. I can claim you. Forever.”
My voice turned soft. “I could never have married you, askim. Never have bought a home with you. Never been safe to live a normal life without fear of being hurt or deported. I think...I think that’s why I struggled to move on from the past. Why I couldn’t shed that depression. Why I never let myself be truly happy because everything felt so fragile and temporary. I wanted you so fucking much, but I couldn’t truly keep you, and that made me angry because I was helpless.”
She swayed in my hold. “But you were taken. You were hurt.”
“I was.” I kissed her softly. “But...it’s over now. I’m back. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m in awe of you, Aslan...but I don’t understand how you’re here after you were deported.”
“I’ll tell you. After. I’ll tell you everything once I’ve been inside you, made love to you, and proven to both of us this isn’t a dream we’ll wake up from. This is us. And...” I smiled against her mouth. “Considering you’re still wearing the engagement ring I gave you, I think it’s only fair we finally set a date for our wedding.”
She gasped. “Are you serious?”
“More serious than anything in my life. I want to marry you with all my fucking heart. I want us to share the same name. I want Ayla to share my name. I want...” I paused with a frown. “Hang on. What is her last name?”
“Avci,” she said quietly. “I...I legally changed mine. Everyone thought I was crazy, but a few years ago, when I was at my darkest, I filled in the paperwork and became yours, even if I belonged to a ghost.”
“Fucking hell.” I crushed her in my arms. I kissed her explicitly hard. “I love you, Nerida. So much.”
She kissed me back, panting by the time we pulled away. “So you see, we don’t technically have to get married—not that I don’t want to, of course. I do. With all my soul. But...we already share the same name. Everyone already knows I belong to you.”
I squeezed my nape. “Ah, well, that’s not technically true.”
“What?” She wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”
“Avci is no longer the name I’m known by.”
“You took his name?” Her face darkened. “After everything he did to you? Why the hell would you do that?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“What? Why?”
Pulling my new passport out of my pocket, I flicked open the photo page.
She snatched it and hissed, “Aslan Kara.”
“It was an unnegotiable requirement.”
“A requirement for what?”
“Of coming back to you.”
Sighing heavily, she tossed my passport onto her bedside table, hitting the photo of me as a baby. “I’m so confused.”
“I know.”
