She inhaled shakily, eyes watering.
“And I know,” I continued quietly, “that things with them aren’t… fully healed. That the texts you’ve sent back and forth have felt stiff and awkward. That you haven’t stood in this house in months. That you’ve only just started letting your siblings back in. I know this isn’t easy.”
Her fingers curled tighter against my neck.
“That’s why I feel like this,” I admitted. “Because I’ve seen you break. I’ve seen how deep it cuts when family becomes a wound. I held you through the worst of it. And the last thing I ever want is to be another strike on the list of things you’ve had to survive. I don’t want to trigger old scars or drag you back into a place you fought like hell to climb out of.”
My throat worked, voice rasping.
“I’m not afraid ofthem,” I said. “I’m afraid of lettingyoudown in a moment that matters to you.”
“I wish you could see yourself the way I do,” she said, simple and certain. “Because I knowexactlywho you are. And there is nothing you could do that would let me down. I chose you. I made my decision.Youare my family now, Cal. Come hellor high water, we are a team. Always. Racing 101, mon amour. That’s a vow we’ve made to each other.”
That did it.
The smile faded. Something in my chest shifted, sharp and deep. Because she wasn’t talking about titles or trophies. She never was.
She took a breath, and I heard it—something quieter underneath her confidence. Not nerves for tonight. Nerves forme. For us.
“No, it’s not easy for me. I’m so fucking nervous I could throw up. But helping you helps me too. Knowing we’re in this together? That isallI need,” she continued. “You are mine. And I am yours. And that means more to me than all the rest of it combined.”
I looked at her then. Really looked.
And fuck.
The tension loosened, the static in my head going quiet. Like she’d reached inside me and adjusted something I didn’t even know was misaligned.
My hands found her waist without thinking, needing the contact, needing to remind myself she was real.
I had nothing to prove, not to her and not to anyone inside that house.
“You are a good man who deserves the world,” she told me fiercely. “You have seen me at my worst and are still standing here today, married to me, committed to this forlife. So please… give yourself the grace that you have given me in all of my darkest moments.”
My throat tightened.
Before I could answer—before I could tell her what that meant to me, a voice came from the top of the steps.
“Aurélie!”
She turned instantly, her entire face lighting up, warmth spilling out of her like sunlight. Her parents stood there, welcoming, open, and something inside me eased even more.
She’d fought for her place in the world, bled for it, earned it. She didn’t need their approval anymore—not the way she once had.
Instead, she choseme.
She glanced over her shoulder at me, eyes soft, affection swelling in her gaze—and then, just to completely wreck me, she slipped into French.
“Tu représentes tout pour moi. Je t'aime, pour toujours et à jamais. Dans cette vie et dans la suivante.”
You are everything to me. I love you, forever and always. In this life and the next.
My heart stuttered, and then—just when I thought she couldn’t possibly undo me any further—she said something that froze me where I stood.
Her voice softened, just barely, slipping into the gentle cadence of Scots Gaelic, shaped by her French lilt, imperfect but earnest in a way that punched straight through my ribs.
“Mo anam.”You are my soul.
I stopped breathing.
