"Love isn't a transaction, Camilla. It's not something you owe me because I feel it for you." I catch her tear with my thumb. "What I feel is my problem. My choice. I'm telling you because I'm donepretending. Done hiding behind rules about day and night and what we do or don't acknowledge. I love you. That's my honest truth. You get to have your own. Whatever it is."
She's quiet for a long moment, more tears tracking down her face. I wipe them away as they fall, waiting for her response. Prepared for rejection. For her to tell me that love doesn't fix what I did, doesn't make us possible.
"You're an idiot," she says finally.
Not what I expected.
"No argument," I agree.
"You think I stayed here by accident? That I came to you last night because I felt sorry for you?" She shifts, moving so she's straddling me, her hands on my chest. "You think I'm still here because I'm confused or making bad decisions?"
"I think you're healing. I think you're trying to reclaim what was taken from you. I think—"
"You think too much." She leans down until our foreheads are touching. "I stayed because I wanted to wake up next to you. Because I'm tired of pretending the nights don't mean anything. Because when I saw you broken in your study, it broke something in me too."
She leans down to softly kiss me.
"I'm not ready to say I love you back," she continues, her voice soft but steady. "Not because I don't think I could get there, but because I need to be sure. Need to know it's real and not just trauma bonding or Stockholm syndrome or any of the hundred complicated reasons people might mistake for love in a situation like ours."
"I understand."
"But I'm falling. Hard. And I think you know that." She pulls back to look at me. "You asked for time and a chance, and my answer is yes. To both."
The relief is so intense it's almost painful.
"But I need something from you too," she says.
"Anything. Tell me."
"No more lying. Ever. About anything. I don't care how ugly the truth is or how much you think you're protecting me. No more manipulation, no more half-truths, no more 'I was going to tell you later.'" Her eyes are fierce now. "If we're doing this, if we're trying to build something real, it has to be built on honesty. Complete honesty."
"Done."
"I mean it, Renato. One lie, one manipulation, and I'm gone. I don't care how much I care about you or how good this feels. I won't stay with someone I can't trust."
"I understand." I reach up to thread my fingers through her hair. "Complete honesty. No matter what. I promise."
She studies my face for a long moment, weighing my words. Then she nods. "Okay, we'll try this. Whatever this is. We'll figure it out together." She leans down to kiss me softly. "Day and night. No more pretending they're separate."
She kisses me again, deeper this time, and I pour everything I'm feeling into it. Love and relief that she's willing to give me this chance.
When we break apart, she stays close, her face inches from mine.
"I need you to know something too," she says quietly.
"What?"
"You're not as fucked up as you think you are. You're trying. Changing. Becoming someone different than the man who took me from that cathedral." Her hand cups my face. "I see it. Every day. In the way you make me coffee and give me space and swim in pools you never used before. In the way you drove me through the mountains just to hear me laugh. In the way you sat alone in your study last night because you thought I didn't want you."
"Camilla—"
She smiles slightly. "You said you don't know how to love properly. But you're wrong. You love fiercely and completely and with everything you have. You loved your mother enough to build an empire so she'd never struggle again. You love me enough to let me set all the rules, to give me all the power."
"That's not—"
"That's exactly what it is. And maybe it's not traditional or healthy or what the relationship books would recommend. But it's real. And it's yours. And I think..." She pauses, considering. "I think maybe that's the kind of love I need."
We lie there together as the morning sun grows stronger, tangled in sheets and each other, finally acknowledging what we've both known for weeks.
