“As long as their killers walked free in my mind, I felt that allowing myself to love you would be a betrayal.”
Tears slid down my cheeks before I could stop them.
Silent. Hot. Uncontrolled.
The room blurred at the edges.
I hated that his words reached something buried deep inside me — something that still remembered longing for him despite everything.
He saw the tears.
His hand lifted instinctively — hesitant, almost instinctual.
Then it stopped midair.
He pulled it back before touching me.
As if afraid his comfort would push me away further.
“Two years,” he repeated softly. “That’s all I’m asking. Not forever. Not ownership.”
His voice lowered. “Two years to try.”
Try what? Rewrite history?
Undo prison? Undo betrayal?
I dragged my sleeve across my face, wiping the tears away roughly — angry at myself for showing weakness.
His expression shifted again.
More fragile now. “Elena...”
His voice cracked on my name.
That fracture startled me more than his earlier declarations. “I swear to you — I never knew you were pregnant.”
The words hung in the space between us.
Heavy. Honest. Or at least — delivered with conviction.
“If Harlan hadn’t confessed to me that he was intercepting your letters — making sure the ones you sent from prison never reached me — I never would have known about the pregnancy.”
His jaw tightened.
“I never saw those letters. I didn’t know you were carrying my child.”
He swallowed.
“I’m not that cruel,” he continued quietly, his voice lowering as if he were admitting something deeply personal.
His eyes dropped briefly to the floor before lifting back to mine. “No matter what I believed you had done... I would never have sent a pregnant woman to prison.”
A bitter laugh threatened to escape me — but I swallowed it.
“You were carrying my child,” he said quietly.
His gaze darkened. “Our child.”
