He knew. He gave me permission to move forward. Had practically written me a roadmap for how to survive his death without drowning in guilt. But permission didn’t make it easier. Understanding didn’t erase the pain.
I thought about Travis in those final days, sitting somewhere quiet with this paper and pen, knowing he was running out of time, trying to find the right words to set me free. I thought about the courage it must have taken to write this, to acknowledge that the woman he loved could possibly love someone else, to give his blessing to a future he wouldn’t be part of. And then I thought about Rowen, sitting downstairs in the living room, waiting to see if I would come back to him or walk away forever. Rowen, who’d spent six months building something just so he could walk away from it. Rowen, who’d given up everything because being the head of the IRA without me felt like wearing a crown he didn’t want.
Edward VIII lived in exile. But he wasn’t alone.
The words I said to Rowen echoed in my mind, taking on new meaning in light of Travis’ letter. Edward had given up the throne for love. Had chosen exile over power. Had spent the rest of his life with the woman he sacrificed everything for. And Travis was telling me to do the same thing. To choose love over loyalty to his memory, to choose life over grief, to choose Rowen over the ghost of what we had.
My hand moved to my belly, feeling the weight of our child growing inside me. A tangible reminder that life moved forward whether we were ready or not, that the future existed whether we chose to participate in it or not.
I picked up the letter again, reading through the words one more time, letting them sink in deeper. Travis’ handwriting blurred through my tears, but I could still make out the essential truth he was trying to convey...I’m allowed to be happy. I’m allowed to love again. I’m allowed to live.
The permission felt like absolution and a burden all at once. Because now I couldn’t hide behind guilt. Couldn’t use loyalty to Travis’ memory as an excuse to keep Rowen at arm’s length. Couldn’t pretend that my feelings for Rowen were a betrayalwhen Travis himself had seen them, understood them, and given his blessing.
I folded the letter carefully, my fingers trembling as I creased the paper along the same lines Travis had folded it. The act felt sacred somehow, like I was preserving something precious and fragile. I slid it back into the envelope, sealing away his last words, his final gift to me.
The room was quiet except for the sound of my breathing, ragged and uneven, slowly returning to normal. The lamp cast long shadows across the walls, and somewhere downstairs, I could hear the faint sounds of Rowen moving around, probably unable to sleep, probably wondering what I was thinking, what I was feeling, whether I would forgive him for the six months of silence.
I stood slowly, my pregnant body protesting the movement. My reflection caught in the mirror across the room. A woman with tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes, a woman who loved and lost and was trying to figure out how to love again. A woman carrying one man’s child while learning to love another. The complexity of it should have been overwhelming. Should have sent me spiraling into panic or despair or the kind of paralysis that comes from having too many feelings at once. But instead, I felt something else. Something that might have been clarity. Or acceptance. Or just the exhausted recognition that grief and love could coexist, that moving forward didn’t mean forgetting, that choosing life didn’t mean betraying the dead.
Travis had given me permission to be happy. Had told me, in his own words, that loving Rowen didn’t diminish what we’d had. That my heart was big enough to hold both of them: the man who’d died protecting me and the man who’d walked away from power to come back to me.
I placed the letter in my nightstand drawer, closing it gently. The finality of the gesture felt right somehow, not hiding Travis’words, but putting them somewhere safe, somewhere I could return to when I needed the reminder that he wanted this for me. That he’d understood.
The house settled around me, quiet and still. Downstairs, Rowen waited. Upstairs, I stood in the aftermath of reading Travis’ last words, devastated and relieved and confused and somehow... released.
I didn’t know what would happen next. Didn’t know if I could fully trust Rowen after months of silence. Didn’t know if I could build a life with a man who’d chosen power over me once, even if he’d eventually chosen me over power. But I knew one thing: Travis had loved me enough to let me go. Had loved me enough to want my happiness more than my grief. Had loved me enough to see that Rowen and I belonged together, even when I’d been too afraid to admit it to myself.
And maybe that was enough. Maybe that was the gift he left me—not just permission but understanding. Not just absolution, but a roadmap for how to survive loving two men at once, how to honor the past while building a future, how to carry grief without letting it consume you.
I sat back down on the bed, my hand resting on my belly, feeling our child move inside me. Travis’ child. A future that existed whether I was ready for it or not. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, new conversations, new moments of reckoning. But tonight, I’d read Travis’ last words. Tonight, I’d received his blessing. Tonight, I’d been given permission to live. And maybe, just maybe, that was the beginning of something. Not forgiveness... not yet. Not trust... not completely. But understanding. The first crack in the wall I built to protect myself from the possibility of being hurt again.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Rowen
Sleep was a foreign country I couldn’t reach.
I lay in the darkness of the bedroom across from hers, staring at the ceiling where shadows played across the plaster like ghosts of conversations we hadn’t had yet. The house settled around me with the particular silence of late night, that hollow, expectant quiet that amplified every creak of wood, every whisper of wind against the windows.
The bed felt too large. Too empty. A king-sized monument to the space between us that months had carved into something vast and unbridgeable.
I bought this house for her. For us. I’d walked through these rooms imagining a future that felt increasingly like fiction. Melissa in the kitchen, Danika running through the halls, maybe another child or two someday. A life that looked nothing like the one I was raised in, nothing like the violence and power plays that had defined my existence since Sinclair had pulled me out of the Trick Pony. But I chose wrong. I chose power when she needed me to choose her. I let Sinclair convince me that consolidating control over the IRA was more important than being present for the woman who needed me more.
Six months.
The number haunted me. One hundred and eighty-three days of her waking up alone, her body changing with pregnancy, navigating grief and anger and the terrible weight of my absence. One hundred and eighty-three days of me telling myself it was necessary, that I was building something that would protecther, that the sacrifice would be worth it. And maybe it had been necessary. Maybe Sinclair had been right that severing our connection was the only way to keep Sylvia St. James from using Melissa as leverage. Maybe my absence had saved her life.
But necessity didn’t make it hurt less. Didn’t erase the look on her face when she saw me in Central Park, that mixture of rage and devastation and something that might have been hope before she crushed it down. It didn’t undo the damage of choosing the throne over the woman who should have been my queen.
Edward VIII had given up everything for love. He’d walked away from the British Empire, from power and prestige and the weight of history itself, because being with Wallis Simpson mattered more than wearing a crown.
I’d done it backwards. I chose the crown first, consolidated power, and became the head of the IRA. And only then, when the throne was secure, had I tried to walk away from it.
Too late,a voice whispered in my mind.You chose too late.
The confrontation earlier had been brutal in its honesty. Her slapping me, screaming at me, calling me every name she could think of while I stood there and took it because I deserved every word. The way she broke down in my arms, her body shaking with sobs that felt like they were tearing her apart from the inside. And then her going to Sinclair. Demanding answers from the man who’d orchestrated my absence, who’d calculated that six months of separation was an acceptable price for her survival. Coming back with understanding but not forgiveness, clarity but not trust.
The story of Edward VIII had been a gamble. A way of showing her what I sacrificed without making excuses, without defending choices that were ultimately indefensible. He’d lived in exile, but he hadn’t been alone. That was the point. That wasthe hope I was clinging to. That maybe, just maybe, she could see that I gave up everything to come back to her.
