Garlen lets that sit for a moment. He doesn’t rush to fill the silence. “What did you say?” he finally asks.
“I touched her and brought her to climax.” I stare at my own hands, the bruised knuckles. “But I didn’t say the words.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” I stop. Start again. “Because saying those words is a vow. It’s the beginning of everything and she’s not ready for all of that yet. She doesn’t fully understand?—”
“Based on what Ellie’s told me, she seems to understand quite a bit.”
“Knowing the facts and being ready to live them are different things, Garlen.”
He studies me with that quiet intensity that makes everyone around him feel like they’re being read. “Or maybe you’re the one who’s not ready.”
My jaw tightens. I want to deny it, but I can’t. “My mother said those words to my father,” I hear myself say. “She told him she loved him and then she left the commune. Left the both of us. Just... disappeared one day without even a note at first. There was a search because everyone was worried that she’d been hurt in some way, until finally a letter arrived and it turned out she was just tired of living with orcs. She was tired of me, too. You know my father didn’t survive the loss.”
“You’re afraid that if you say it, she’ll leave too?”
“I’m afraid that if I say it and she leaves, I won’t survive it. The way he didn’t.”
Garlen exhales slowly and leans back in his chair. “You know I was chained in this basement, completely out of my mind. Then I finally upgraded to being chained in my own bedroom. And every single day, I was terrified that when spring came and the chains came off, Ellie would look at me and decide what shefelt was pity, not love. That she’d move back to the house next door and I’d be alone with the memory of what I almost had.”
“But she didn’t leave.”
“No. She married me the same day the chains came off. But I had to trust her enough to let the chains come off. I had to risk it.” His eyes hold mine. “Sloane told you she loves you. She said the words first, which means she took the risk before you did. The least you can do is match her courage.”
That lands. Hard. It’s true that she put herself out there, vulnerable and trembling, and I responded by making her come and then telling her to go to sleep.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“There’s something else,” Garlen continues, shifting forward. “Ellie told me about the phone call with Sloane’s editor. The article is almost ready and her editor wants her back in DC.”
“I know. I was there when the call came in.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do? I can’t ask her to give up her career for me. That’s what her ex-fiancé did and it destroyed everything between them.”
Garlen stares at me with an expression I’ve only seen him use on students who’ve said something spectacularly stupid in his classroom. “Jonus. Are you serious right now?”
“What?”
“You organized an extraction team and flew to Colombia in forty-eight hours to pull this female out of a cartel compound. You carried her through forty kilometers of jungle. You hired former Navy SEALs.” He leans forward. “And you’re telling me you can’t figure out how to move to Washington DC?”
I blink.
“You’re an Irontree,” he continues, his voice gaining that authority that makes humans shut up and listen. “You have resources, you have skills that work from anywhere in the world,and you have a female who thinks she has to choose between you and her life’s work. She shouldn’t have to choose. Tell her you’ll go with her.”
“But this family is here. You’re here. Dane and Laurie?—”
“We’re a phone call and a plane ride away. Keric is in Maine. Kelt is in Maine. Family isn’t a zip code, Jonus.” He holds my gaze. “Family is what you and Sloane are building right now.”
“What if she doesn’t want me to come with her?”
“Then she’ll tell you that. But you need to give her the option. Right now she thinks she’s stuck choosing between you and DC because that’s the only framework she’s ever known. Her ex-fiancé expected her to sacrifice everything. Be different. Tell her you’ll follow her anywhere.” He pauses. “And mean it.”
I’m quiet for a long moment. Then something comes out that I haven’t told anyone. “I found a house.”
Garlen raises an eyebrow.
