“Technically I’m already married.” He tugged on her hand, pulling her closer until he could reach both. “But you never made it to the ceremony.”
Her brows drew together. “What are you saying?”
“The wedding tomorrow isyourwedding, Lizzie. I want to marry you…again.” He paused for a moment, then added with a wink. “I’m really hoping that the third time’s the charm.”
She was falling apart from the inside out. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen if Freddy had not grabbed hold of her elbow and led her to a nearby bench. He helped her sit, lowering himself to a spot near her.
“But…you…I don’t love you.”
“I know.”
“Ican’tlove you.”
“I know.”
Why is he being so infuriatinglypatient!Doesn’t he understand that he gets nothing out of this?
Anger and grief on his behalf bubbled just below surface, second only to the fear that she would love him and find herself betrayed.
“Freddy, Icursed myself.”
“I know,” he repeated softly, brushing the hair from her face with an agonizing tenderness. “And I know why you did. Every example you saw of love was a broken one. You saw your father’s love that came with abuse, and your mother’s love that was rejected. We were fifteen, Lizzie. You knew me, but you didn’t know how I would treat your heart. You had no way of knowing if I would cherish it or destroy it. You were afraid—afraid of what it meant if you were loved, and afraid of what it would mean if you weren’t.”
He took her hands, wrapping his fingers gently around them. “But just because you’re cursed doesn’t mean I am, Lizzie. I have loved you since the moment I first saw you smile, though it was a different kind of love then. I loved you as a young boy with nothing but a dream for the future, and I love you as a man in complete awe of the battles that you have faced and won. I will continue to love you, every hour of every day, until you realizethat you can trust me with your heart because I will keep it safe. I’ll keepyousafe. And then we’ll figure out a way to break your curse and I will love you until my dying breath.”
The last bit of ice around her heart cracked and fell away, and tears filled Lizzie’s eyes as she finally allowed herself to accept a truth that she long since kept buried out of fear.
She could trust Freddy.
Shedidtrust Freddy.
He was as reliable as the sunshine, showing up even when she couldn’t see him through the clouds.
He had been there through her childhood, through the ten long years of their engagement. Even when she pushed him away, he still kept showing up. He was there on the worst night of her life, and he had traveled across the continent and back again, all for the purpose of bringing her there, to that moment.
A tear trembled at the corner of her eye, glinting silver in the moonlight before rolling down her cheek for the first time in more than ten years.
“I love you, Freddy,” she whispered. “I think I always did, even when I forced myself to forget. I do trust you.” Once the first tear started, it was as if the floodgates had opened.
Freddy drew her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead and wrapping his strong arms around her shoulders.
And Lizzie cried.
Chapter Twenty
Freddy
Freddy had been prepared for many different scenarios when he finally revealed his identity, but he had not expected to hold his wife through a raging hurricane of tears.
His heart broke at the sobs that racked her frame, knowing that he could do nothing more for her pain than simply be there. And yet, at the same time, he said a prayer of thanks for every tear that fell, knowing that it meant his Lizzie was finally free.
His jacket and shirt were completely soaked through by the time her sobs had quieted into sniffles and hiccups, but he found he didn’t care. He pulled Lizzie onto his lap, and he thought his heart would burst as she looped her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. This jacket could have used a wash, anyway. Besides, a very wise woman once said to me that if you only share smiles, you only share part of yourself. I want all of you, Lizzie—your smiles and your tears.”
She sniffled.
