“Then say it,” he said quietly.
She drew a slow breath. “I lied to you,” she said, her voice low and unsteady. “I should not have. I know that now. But I never meant to put you or Tessa in danger. I was trying to protect myself, and when I realized I couldn’t, I tried to protect you instead.”
Each word struck him with painful clarity.
Her voice wavered then, the composure she had fought so hard to maintain finally slipping. “I thought leaving was the only way.”
Something deep in Wilhelm’s chest gave way, a profound ache, sharp and tender all at once. He saw it suddenly with devastating clarity: a woman who had survived by disappearing, by making herself small and expendable, believing love was something she had to flee before it destroyed those she cared for.
He reached for her without thinking, his hand cupping her face with instinctive gentleness, his thumb brushing beneath her eye as though he might erase the fear there by touch alone. He tilted her face up until she had no choice but to meet his gaze.
“Madeline,” he said softly, and there was nothing reprimanding in it, nothing stern. Only truth. “None of that was your fault.”
She shook her head, tears clinging to her lashes. “I should have trusted you.”
The words pierced him cleanly.
“And I should have been braver,” he replied at once, without pause or defensiveness, because the admission had been waiting inside him for far too long. “I should have told you what I felt the moment I understood it. I hid behind propriety and restraint and told myself I was protecting you, when in truth I was afraid.”
The confession left him oddly breathless, as though naming it stripped away the last barrier between them.
Her breath caught. “Afraid of what?”
He did not look away. “Of wanting you,” he said simply. “And of what it would mean if I admitted it.”
He leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers, the contact intimate and grounding, their breaths mingling in the narrow space between them. He could feel her there—alive, warm, trembling—and the thought of almost losing this, of almost losingher, sent a fierce, unrelenting surge through him.
“Society be damned,” he murmured, the words low and resolute. “I should have chosen you openly sooner. I should have trusted you with the truth and trusted myself enough to stand by it.”
Her hands rose slowly, hesitantly, as though she were still unsure of her right to touch him. When her palms settled against his chest, just above his heart, they trembled faintly.
“You did choose me,” she whispered and the certainty in her voice undid him completely.
“I am choosing you,” he corrected softly. “Every day.”
Something in her expression broke then, emotion flooding her features in a way that made his chest ache painfully. She kissed him again, deeper this time, her mouth moving against his withunmistakable hunger, with relief, with love that no longer held itself at bay.
Wilhelm responded instantly, his arm tightening around her, his hand sliding along the curve of her back, memorizing her anew as though he might never have enough of the simple fact of her existence.
When they broke apart, he rested his brow against hers once more.
“I love you,” he said, the words steady and unguarded. “I have for longer than I admitted to myself.”
Her breath shuddered. “I love you too.”
Wilhelm reached into the pocket of his coat carefully. He had felt the weight of it there all morning, grounding him, reminding him of what came next.
Madeline noticed the movement and stilled, her eyes widening slightly. “Wilhelm…?”
He took her hand again, more firmly this time, as though it might keep his courage from slipping away. Her fingers were warm, familiar now in a way that startled him, and when his thumb pressed gently into her palm, he felt the faint tremor there, the pulse that betrayed how tightly she was holding herself together.
“I am going to ask you something,” he said, his voice low. His heart was beating harder than it ever had at any moment that had demanded command. This was different. This was naked. “And you may say no. I will survive it,” he added honestly, meeting her eyes, “though I hope very much that I will not have to.”
Her breath hitched.
Her name rested on his tongue like a vow already half-spoken.
“Madeline Enright,” he said quietly.
