I look at her. Really look at her—the water streaming down her face, the determination in her eyes, the way she hasn't run even though she's seen what I am, what I've done, what I'm capable of.
"Why did you come out here?" I ask. "Why didn't you stay in the greenhouse where it's dry?"
She doesn't answer immediately. Just looks at me with an expression I can't quite read.
"I don't know," she says finally. "I saw you come back, and I just... I needed to see you. Needed to—" She stops, shakes her head. "I don't know what I needed. I just know I'm tired of running from it."
"Running from what?"
"This." She gestures between us. "Whatever this is. I've been trying to convince myself it's not real. Trauma bonding, Stockholm syndrome, proximity and fear masquerading as something else. But I keep ending up here. Walking toward you instead of away."
My heart is pounding now. The rain has soaked through to my skin, but I can barely feel the cold.
"Bianca—"
"I found those letters," she says, cutting me off. "I read about your parents, about the love they had. And I thought—if they could find something real in the middle of all this violence, all this darkness, then maybe..." She trails off. "I don't know. Maybe I'm losing my mind."
"You're not losing your mind."
"Then what is this? What are we doing?"
I don't have an answer. I've spent seventeen years building walls to keep everyone out, and she's standing in front of me in the rain, asking me to explain something I don't understand myself.
But I know what I want. I've known since the moment I heard her talking about hearts at that gala, since the moment I walked away from her and felt something inside me die.
I want her. Not just her body—though God knows I want that too—but all of her. Her sharp mind, her stubborn heart, her refusal to be managed or controlled.
I want to be the kind of man who deserves her. And I'm terrified that I never will be.
"I don't know what this is," I say honestly. "I don't know if I can give you what you need. I've done things, Bianca. Terrible things. Tonight, yesterday, every day for the past seventeen years. That's not going to change."
"I know."
"I can't promise you a normal life. I can't promise you safety or peace or any of the things you deserve."
"I know that too."
"Then why are you still standing here?"
She steps closer. Close enough that I can feel the warmth of her breath, see the pulse jumping in her throat.
"Because you came back," she says. "You went to Nevada and you saved those women, not because it benefited you, but because I asked. Because it mattered to me." She reaches up and touches my face, her fingers cold and wet against my jaw. "That's not the action of a monster. That's the action of a man trying to be better."
I close my eyes. Her touch is almost painful—too gentle, too kind for someone like me.
"I'm not a good man, Bianca."
"Maybe not. But you're not the monster you think you are either." Her thumb traces my cheekbone. "You're somewhere in between. And so am I."
I open my eyes. She's looking at me with something I've never seen before—not fear, not anger, not the guarded wariness that's been her constant companion since she arrived.
Hope. She's looking at me with hope.
"If you tell me to stop," she whispers, "I will. If you tell me this is a mistake, I'll go back inside and we'll pretend this never happened. But I need you to say it now, because in about ten seconds I'm going to do something I can't take back."
I should stop her. Should push her away, send her inside, protect her from myself. That's what a decent man would do.
I've never been a decent man.
