“So much fucking blood on my hands, but I would do it again,” he growls, chest heaving. “I will do it again if I have to.”
“I know.”
He cups my face with one hand, the other still pressed to my heart.
“I love you, Wife. You’re mine,” he whispers.
I nod.
“I’m yours,” I breathe. “And I think I’ve been yours since the moment you kissed me when we were back in Manhattan.”
He leans in, brushing his lips to mine like he’s afraid I’ll break.
But I don’t.
Not now.
Never with him.
“You terrify me,” I murmur, when he pulls back just a breath. “Because I’ve never felt like this. Because I know this is real. And because if I lose you, I don’t think I’ll survive it.”
“You won’t lose me,” he says, voice like thunder wrapped in velvet. “Not in this life. Not in any other. I swear it.”
I believe him.
God help me, I believe him.
Because no man who bathes your wounds with his bare hands, who trembles when you hurt, who kisses your bruises like they were his to bear.
No man who does all that lies about this.
And I know that I’ve loved him this whole time.
I just have to tell him.
Chapter Thirty-Five-Atlas
I’ve never driven so recklessly in my life.
Helicopter. SUV. Private jet. Another SUV. And now, finally, home.
Not just any home. Our home.
The one she doesn’t know about. The replica castle in Rumson, New Jersey that I bought before this all began.
Before I knew I’d be bringing a queen back here to live with me.
The air in South Jersey is colder, cleaner this late in January.
The kind of sharp that wakes you up and clears your mind.
But nothing has ever made me feel more alive than holding Cecilia in my arms again.
She’s bruised.
Bandaged.
Exhausted.
