“El—”
“I know.” She cuts me off before I can launch into yet another lecture. “I know you have to, it’s the only way, yes, yes, yes. I know all of it, Bastian. I just…” Her composure splinters and tears leak through the gaps. “I just got you back.”
I sigh. “Come here, you silly girl.”
I pull her against me, mindful of the belly between us. Eliana’s arms wrap around my waist and she presses her face into my chest, breathing me in. “I hate this,” she mumbles against my shirt.
“I know.”
“I hate that you have to be the one to fix everything.”
“I know.”
“I hate that I can’t come with you.”
I pull back just enough to cup her face in my hands. “Youarecoming with me,” I tell her. “Every second I’m in that room, you’ll be right here.” I touch her pregnant belly. “You and this kid are the only reason I’m doing any of this. The reason I’m still breathing at all.”
A tear trickles down her cheekbone. “When did you get so poetic?”
“I’ve died and come back to life a few times now. Makes a man philosophical.”
She laughs and rubs at her tears. “It’s not funny,” she scolds, hitting me in the chest. “None of this is.”
I can sense that she needs something concrete to hold onto. She’s lost so much, again and again and again, so I can’t really blame her for that.
“When I get back,” I say slowly, “we’re going to start planning our new life. Properly. We’re going to name our baby, okay? And then, not a minute too soon, I’m going to make you my wife.”
I feel her go still. “Bastian?—”
“I don’t have a ring yet, and I’m in no hurry to pick it out, because once I do, you’re going to be wearing it for the rest of your life, so it needs to be the right one. I’m a fucked-up man with a fucked-up past, Eliana. But it doesn’t have to be a fucked-up future. If you’ll have me in spite of everything, then I want you forever.”
She’s silent for so long I start to worry I’ve misread everything. That maybe the sex in the garden and the nights we’ve spent tangled together were just comfort, just survival, just two desperate people clinging to each other in the dark.
Then her hands fist in my shirt and she yanks me down to her level. “You absolute fucking idiot,” she breathes against my lips. “Of course I’ll have you. I’vebeenhaving you. In every possible way a person can have another person.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a ‘yes, you moron; now, kiss me before I change my mind.’”
I kiss her. Hard enough to bruise, soft enough to worship. I pour every terrified, hopeful, desperate thing I’m feeling into that kiss, and she takes it all. She takes everything I have and gives it back doubled, tripled, infinite.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“I need to go,” I whisper. “But one more thing first.”
I sink to my knees on the cold concrete. Eliana’s hands root through my hair as I press my lips to the swell of her stomach.
“Hey, kiddo,” I murmur against her skin, too quiet for Eliana to hear me. “I know we haven’t officially met yet. But I need you to take care of your mom for a few hours, okay? Keep her company. Kick a lot. Make sure she knows you’re still here. And I’ll be back soon, alright? I’m coming home to you. Both of you. I swear it on everything I am and everything I’m going to be.”
When I stand, Eliana pulls me into one last kiss. “Swear it again,” she says against my mouth. “Swear you’re coming back to me.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die, Ms. Hunter.” I brush my lips across her forehead, her eyelids, and the tip of her nose. “Savor that—it won’t be your last name for much longer.”
I pull away and get in the car. She’s still standing there when I back out of the driveway. I watch her in the rearview mirror until the road curves and she disappears from sight.
Then I turn my eyes forward and drive toward the end of everything.
53
