“It isn’t,” I say immediately. “Not forever.”
“When?” she demands. “When the baby is one? Five? When they decide they’re bored trying to kill me? When you decide you’re bored of—of—” She waves an arm because even she realizes there’s no good word for what she wants to say.
I understand anyway.
“That will never happen, Elena,” I tell her evenly. “There will never be a ‘bored of.’”
She snorts, a tear spilling over her cheek. “You say that now.”
“I’ll say it tomorrow,” I answer. “And in ten years, twenty. And when we’re old and you’re yelling at me about crumbed biscotti in the bed.”
Her mouth jerks, angry and unsure. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I love you,” I say.
The room goes very still. Even the house seems to step back a pace.
I don’t dress it up, and I don’t rush to fill the space after. I let it be what it is. “I’m not a man who throws that word around,” I add calmly. “I’ve only ever said it to one other woman in my life. And now I’m saying it to you.”
She stares at me like she’s waiting for the trick. When it doesn’t come, something fragile flashes across her face, and then she smothers it with stubbornness. “You love me,” she repeats, testing the words in her mouth.
“I do.”
Her eyes shine, anger? “You love a woman who tried to get you thrown back in prison? Who stood on the opposite side of a courtroom?”
“I love the woman who stood up to me,” I say. “Who did her job even when I made it hard. Who still believes there’s a right way to do things in a world that keeps rewarding the wrong ones. Who’s carrying my child and still thinks about other people first.” I take a step closer, slow.
She looks down at her shaking hands and clenches them into fists. “I can’t promise you I won’t break under this,” she says,ragged. “I don’t… I don’t know how to be the person you need and still be me.”
“You being you is the entire point,” I tell her. “I don’t want a different version of you. I want the woman who stood opposite me in court. The woman who can’t cook worth a damn but treasures her mother’s recipe box more than anything. The woman who loves those disgusting double-shot lattes.”
She lets out a watery laugh.
She pushes up out of the chair, palms skimming her thighs as if she needs the feel of her own body to steady herself. We’re close now, not touching. Her chin tips up; the stubbornness is still there, but her eyes are softer.
“I hate that I want you here,” she says. “I hate that I need you here.”
“You can hate it,” I say. “I’ll still be here.”
She studies my face like a witness she’s not sure she should put on the stand. Then she steps into me and sets her hands flat on my chest. I don’t move. I let her set the pace.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she says, voice low. “I don’t know how to be brave and terrified at the same time. I don’t know how to be a lawyer who wants the rule of law and a woman who wants—” She presses her lips together, frustrated tears threatening again. “You.”
“Then want me,” I say softly. “The rest we sort.”
She breathes, and I feel it through my shirt. Her fingers curl, bunching the material. She looks up, and all the fight in her eyes has left.
“I love you,” she says.
It’s barely more than a breath, but it lands in my gut like a swift kick.
She swallows and says it again, stronger. “I love you.”
I exhale, slowly, because anything louder will break the moment. “Say it again,” I murmur.
Her lips lift—exasperated, fond. “I love you,” she repeats, and the third is a promise.
I cover her hands with mine, holding her to me, not trapping—anchoring. “Thank you,” I say. “For trusting me with that.”
