“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I want space. But also this. You.”
“You can have both.”
“How?”
“You keep your cabin,” he says. “Use it as a short-term rental. Earn money. Build savings. Work at the shop. Then split time however the hell you want. My place, your place. I can set you up in one of the rentals by the shop. You don’t have to move in permanently to sleep in my bed most nights.”
My breath catches. “Most nights?”
He leans in, voice dropping, low and rough. “Sweetheart, after yesterday? You’re not sleeping alone unless you insist on it.”
Emotion punches me straight in the chest.
“But,” he adds, pressing a finger under my chin to lift my face, “I’m not taking your independence. I don’t want it. I want you. However you come.”
A tear escapes.
He catches it with his thumb.
“Why are you being so—” I choke. “—so good about this?”
“Because,” he says, thumb stroking my cheek, “I never thought I’d try a real relationship again. Not after everything with my wife. Not after years of keeping my distance. And then I almost lost you before I ever really had you.”
He pauses. Swallows.
“And it hit me like a damn truck that if I didn’t do something—if I didn’t fight for this—I’d spend the rest of my life telling myself you were the one that got away.”
My heart stops.
He keeps going, voice softer.
“I don’t need a ring. I don’t need vows. I don’t need forever promised on paper. I just need you choosing me every day you want to. And I’ll choose you back. Every day I can.”
My breath trembles.
I reach out and cup his jaw.
“Tony…”
“Yeah?”
“I choose you.”
His eyes darken, soften, melt all at once.
I rest my forehead against his. “Not as a wife. Not as a possession. Not as someone who belongs to you. But someone who wants you. And wants this. And wants to figure it out together.”
His breath hits my lips.
“That’s enough,” he whispers.
“It is?” I ask.
“It’s everything.”
He pulls me into his chest, strong arms wrapping fully around me, and for once in my life I feel held without being caged, loved without being claimed like property, wanted without being consumed.
I let out a shaky breath and sink into him.
