"Liar." He grins against my mouth. "You'd do it again in a heartbeat."
"Prove it."
The words come out challenging. Teasing. I don't expect him to actually?—
He drops to one knee.
Right there in our living room, with Mila's puzzle still scattered across the coffee table and the smell of burnt cookies lingering from my latest disaster. He takes my hand—the one with the ring he bought me, the one I've worn every day since a bored judge made us legal—and looks up at me with those storm-grey eyes.
"Sergei, what are you?—"
"The first time you proposed to me," he says quietly, "it was in my office. You were desperate. I was suspicious. Neither of us believed it would become real."
"It wasn't supposed to be real."
"No. It wasn't." His thumb traces my knuckles, the ring catching lamplight. "But somewhere between teaching you to shoot and watching you kill for our daughter, it became the realest thing I've ever had."
My throat closes. "You don't have to?—"
"I know I don't have to. That's why I'm doing it." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small velvet box. My heart stops. "Isabelle Davenport. You walked into my life with an insane proposal and refused to take no for an answer. You made me believe dangerous men could have good things. You gave me a family I didn't know I was missing."
He opens the box.
Inside is a ring. Not the one I'm wearing—something different. A band of white gold with a single diamond, elegant and simpleand nothing like the flashy rock he bought to convince the courts.
"This one's real," he says. "No lawyers. No inheritance clauses. No judges who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else. Just me asking you to stay. Forever. Because I want you to, not because either of us needs you to."
I'm crying. When did I start crying?
"You're supposed to ask a question," I manage.
"Marry me, Isabelle." His voice is rough. Raw. "Again. For real this time. Because I love you, and I want the world to know it wasn't just survival. It was choice. You're my choice. Every single day."
I sink down to my knees in front of him, not caring about the hardwood or the puzzle pieces digging into my shins. My hands find his face, stubble rough against my palms.
"Yes." The word comes out broken. "Yes, you impossible man. I'll marry you again. As many times as you want."
"Just once more." He slides the new ring onto my finger, right next to the original. Two bands now. Two promises. "The first wedding was for the courts. This one's for us."
"When?"
"Whenever you want. Tomorrow. Next month. I don't care about the ceremony. I just—" He stops, jaw working. "I needed you to know. That I'd choose you. That I do choose you. Every single day I wake up and choose this. Choose us."
I kiss him.
Not soft. Not sweet. This is everything I can't say with words—gratitude and terror and love so big it feels like drowning. He responds in kind, pulling me against him, both of us kneeling on the floor like idiots while our daughter sleeps upstairs and the city glitters through windows that have seen us at our worst.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.
"That was smooth," I tell him. "Did you practice?"
"For weeks." He's almost smiling. "Andrei made me rehearse."
"Andrei knows about this?"
"Andrei helped me pick the ring. He has surprisingly good taste for a man who's killed people with a corkscrew."
I laugh—wet and ridiculous and so happy it hurts. "We're insane."
