"Here we are," I repeated. "In your penthouse. With you proposing marriage and me actually considering it because every other option ends with me dead or worse."
"Is that the only reason you're considering it?"
I should have said yes. Should have made it clear that this was purely transactional, a survival strategy and nothing more.
But I was tired of lying. To him. To myself.
"No," I admitted. "That's not the only reason."
Something shifted in his expression. Not triumph—something more complicated. Hope, maybe. Or recognition.
"You feel it too," he said. "Whatever this is."
"I feel something. I don't know what it is. And I don't trust it."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm a psychologist. I know how this works—the intensity of shared trauma, the false intimacy of crisis bonding. What we're feeling isn't real. It's adrenaline and proximity and the human need to connect when everything else is falling apart."
"Is that what you really believe?"
I wanted to say yes. Wanted to retreat into clinical language and professional distance and all the defenses I'd spent years building.
But he was looking at me with those dark eyes, and I could see his own walls crumbling, and the truth was, I didn't believe it. Not entirely.
"I don't know what I believe," I said. "I don't know anything anymore."
He closed another step of distance. We were only a few feet apart now, close enough that I could smell him—something masculine and expensive that I remembered from the sessions, back when he was just a patient and I was just his therapist, and neither of us knew how thoroughly our lives were about to collide.
"Then believe this," he said. "I will protect you. Whatever happens between us—whatever you decide about the marriage, about me, about any of it—I will keep you safe. That's not a bargain. It's not a transaction. It's a promise."
I wanted to believe him. That was the terrifying part. Despite everything—the violence, the stalking, the impossible situation—I wanted to trust this man I barely knew.
"Why?" I asked. "Why do you care what happens to me?"
"I don't know." He was close enough now that I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, the faint scar on his jaw I'd never noticed before. "I've been asking myself that question for three weeks. Ever since you looked at me in that office and saw something no one else bothers to look for."
"What did I see?"
"The truth. The mess underneath the performance." He paused. "Me."
My heart was beating too fast. I could feel the heat of him, the magnetic pull that had been building since the first session. Every professional instinct I had was screaming at me to step back, to create distance, to protect myself.
I didn't step back.
"This is a terrible idea," I whispered.
"Probably."
"If I say yes—to the marriage—it doesn't mean..."
"It doesn't mean anything you don't want it to mean."
We stood there, inches apart, the city glittering behind us and the wreckage of our lives spread out before us. I thought about all the reasons this was wrong—the violence, the deception, the impossible circumstances. I thought about the women I'd treated, the survivors who'd taught me that powerful men were never to be trusted.
And then I thought about the way he'd looked at me across that therapy office. The way he'd stepped between me andthe guns without hesitation. The way he was looking at me now, like I was something precious he was terrified of breaking.
"I need time," I said. "To think. To process."
