“When I saw you’d turned off your notifications, I thought you were dancing. Maybe punishing me a little. Which I deserved, but I thought you would come home after you were done at the studio. You didn’t take a jacket. You hadn’t actually left me if all you had was your phone and a credit card.”
Oh. She was starting to see why the lack of a coat was such a big deal.
“What other reason could there be then, when time wore on and you didn’t come home? I was actually relieved to hear you had gone to a damned hotel with a male dancer because at least if you were having an affair, I knew you were alive.”
“I wasn’t having an affair.”
“No, but if your aim was to show me how empty my life would be if you left me, mission accomplished.”
“I’ve told you where I was. Are you really going to say I shouldn’t have gone to meet my birth mother’s brother?”
“No. But you didn’t have to go alone. I would have gone with you if you’d asked. What does it say about where we’re at that you didn’t even think to call me and ask me to meet you there? You didn’t trust me to be your support in that. Did you?” He ran his hand over his face, but not before she saw the anguish that flashed across his expression.
“I was just reacting,” she murmured. “It felt urgent. Like they would disappear if I didn’t see them right away. I know that doesn’t sound rational.”
“I understand why you went, Joy. I do.” He dropped his hand. “And I’m glad it went well, but what if it hadn’t? What if it had turned out like it had with Otto, and you were rejected all over again, and I wasn’t there to absorb some of that blow? You didn’t even know that I wanted youhere.” He pointed at the floor. “For as long as we both manage to live.”
Well, why did he have to say that? For someone who was being mostly an ass, he was also being sweet enough to make her blink back tears.
“I never should have told you to leave.” His voice thickened with remorse. “It was stupid. Mean. I’m sorry I said it, and I hope you’ll forgive me. But, Joy, I want you to be with me because you want to be with me. When you said you wanted to leave, I had to give you that. I don’t know how to show how I feel except by giving you what you seem to need.” He held out his open palms, helpless. “I feel a lot. I love you.”
“Don’t…” A knot formed behind her breastbone, but a tiny, tiny hope began to unfurl inside her. “Don’t say that word if you don’t mean it.”
He came to sit on the coffee table and clasped her hands. He looked into her eyes, and there was such a fierce light there, her heart lurched toward hope, but she held it back, fearful.
“Refusing to say it doesn’t make it not true,” he said with disgruntlement.
“But you think love is something that makes you weak. That hurts to carry. You don’t want it.” Her voice wavered.
“I said that,” he acknowledged. “And it does hurt. It’s a terrifying emotion, Schatz. It means that this…” He scanned his gaze all over her. “Any little harm to you might as well be a knife to my own heart. I can’t stand when you’re hurt. That’s why I was so eaten up today when I didn’t know where you were. I had hurt you, and I felt it so deeply. It was a self-inflicted wound, and I couldn’t fix it because I couldn’t find you. I love you,” he repeated, hands tightening on hers.
She searched his face, very frightened she was dreaming and would wake up heartbroken all over again.
“I can see you’re having trouble believing me. Look. The kind of love I grew up with was obligation and responsibility, but that’s not what this is. I thought love was something that was imposed on you. Some entity I could choose to bring into our relationship or not. But itisour relationship. I realized that when you said you would take back your love. I knew you couldn’t do that because I couldn’t keep from loving you. I want to marry you again.”
“What?”
He ran his thumbs across her knuckles and caught the pad of his thumb against her wedding rings. “I want to marry you for no reason except that we love each other. I want you in my life forever, Joy. We belong together. Do you think you would be willing to marry me again? For real this time?”
It wasn’t just the words that made her vision blur with tears. It was the pledge. The emotion. The truth. The profound belief that settled over her that she really did have a place in his life, with him. Forever.
She had to bite her quivering lips as sweet love tumbled through her. She placed her hand against the side of his face, barely able to speak past the elation swelling her heart.
“I do.”
EPILOGUE
Two years later…
Joy was toonervous to peek into the crowd before curtain, but Axel had sent her the requisite break-a-leg text, so she knew he was here. When the first notes of the score resounded through the small theater, she became completely focused on her cues and marks and delivering the best performance she could.
The techno-pop musical was loosely based onThe Threepenny Opera. Mounting this production with fellow students had been part of her final grade, earning her a degree in performing arts. It had been so well received, they’d been able to persuade a local theater to give them a short run.
Singing was not Joy’s natural talent, but she could match pitch in chorus numbers, and this production relied heavily on interpretive dance. In fact, she had choreographed some of the numbers, so she knew them through and through.
It was still nerve-racking, especially when she thought about doing this every night for—No. Don’t think about that now. Leap. Twirl. Exit stage left.
She was sweating and panting at curtain call but exhilarated. The audience was on their feet, likely coaxed there by her family. Axel had bought out an entire row for Joy’s family, flying them in for it. Even David was here, probably still trying to calm Carrie’s nerves as she checkedone more timewith the professional nanny service minding their children at the hotel.
