The thought hit me like a punch. Yesterday, he'd been folding my clothes, preparing to leave, convinced I didn't want him. If I'd stayed frozen in that doorway for another minute, if fear had kept me silent, he'd be gone. Out there somewhere, alone, thinking he wasn't wanted.
Because I'd been too fucking scared to tell him the truth.
I tightened my arms around him. He stirred, making a soft sound of protest, and burrowed closer.
"Too early," he mumbled against my chest.
"It's almost nine."
"Too early."
I smiled into his hair. "Since when do you sleep late?"
"Since someone kept me up half the night." He tilted his head up, and even half-asleep, his eyes sparkled with something that made my chest ache. "I'm not complaining."
"Good."
We lay there for a while, neither of us moving to get up. The morning light filtered through the curtains, casting warm stripes across the bed. Outside, the world hummed with its usual noise. Inside, everything was quiet. Still. Like we'd carved out a pocket of space that belonged only to us.
"This is strange," Tobias eventually said.
"What is?"
"Being allowed to stay." He traced a finger along my collarbone. "I keep waiting for you to tell me to go."
"I'm not going to tell you to go."
"I know. That's what's strange." He propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me. "I've never had this before. Someone who actually wants me here."
The words were matter-of-fact, but I heard the weight beneath them. Twenty-six years of being treated like a chess piece, moved around the board according to someone else's strategy. Never asked what he wanted. Never allowed to want at all.
"I want you here," I said. "I should have told you sooner."
"Yes. You should have." But he was smiling. "I'm considering forgiving you."
"Considering?"
"It's a process. I might need to be convinced."
I pulled him down and kissed him. Long and slow, nothing like the desperate hunger of last night. This was something else. Softer. More certain. The kind of kiss that said I'm not going anywhere.
When we finally broke apart, he was breathless.
"Okay," he said. "I'm convinced."
We stayed in bed until almost
noon, not doing anything in particular. Just talking, touching, learning this new version of us. Tobias shared his architecture courses at Columbia, the historic preservation project his father had dismissed, and the designs he'd sketched in secret—buildings he dreamed of creating, spaces he imagined bringing to life.
"Why didn't you fight for it?" I asked.
"Fight how?" He shrugged, but old pain lingered in his eyes. "My father controls the family company. My brother was always going to take over. There was no place for my ideas."
"So you just gave up?"
"I filed them away. Told myself I'd revisit them someday, when I had more standing. When I'd proven myself." His laugh was hollow. "Except I was never going to prove myself. That wasn't the point. The point was keeping me busy until they needed me for something."
"Like marrying Elizabeth."
