"This isn't that kind of box." He opens it, revealing not a ring but a key. Simple. Silver. Threaded onto a delicate chain that catches the light. "This is the key to your office. The corner one, with the floor-to-ceiling windows and the view of the city right next to mine. You can work there or here on these floors. The choice is yours. My kingdom is yours."
I take the chain with trembling fingers. The metal is cool against my palm, solid proof that this is real. That I am standing in my own publishing house, holding the key to an office I never thought I would have.
"I don't know what to say." The words come out thick, clogged with emotions I cannot name.
"Say you'll love me until the day I die and beyond." Drake's voice drops to the rough velvet I love. "Say you'll build this empire and fill it with stories that matter. Say you'll come home to me every night and let me love you until we're both too old to remember why we fought it for so long."
"You want that kind of forever with me?"
"More than I can ever put into words, little rose." He pulls me against him, his forehead resting against mine. "Say you want this. Say you're ready."
I think about the life stretching before me. The publishing house with my name on the wall. The man whose ring gleams on my finger. The family that survived the worst and came out stronger. The future that once seemed impossible now laid out like a map to happiness.
And I think about the start of our family.
"I want this." I press my palm against his chest, feeling his heart beat beneath my hand. "All of it. The publishing house. The marriage. You." I take a breath, letting the words rise from somewhere deep inside me. "And I want a family, Drake. With you. I'm ready. I tossed my birth control."
The hope that blazes across his face steals the last of my defenses. He sweeps me into his arms and carries me through the empty Redthorne floors set to house my publishing company, past the bookshelves and the reading nooks and the desk with my name on it, toward the elevator that will take us home.
Our home. Our future. Our life, built on the ashes of wishes and contracts and the stubborn belief that some people are worth fighting for.
Drake strips me and presses me against the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse. Our penthouse. The glass is cool against my bare shoulders, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from his body as he cages me between his arms. Chicago spreads beneath us, a glittering tapestry of lights and shadows, thirty-two stories of indifferent city that has no idea two people are finding their forever in the reflection of its skyline.
"I want you to watch as I enter your beautiful pussy, baby girl. Watch how good you take me." His voice is gravel and heat against my ear. His breath stirs the hair at my temple. "Watch what I do to my future wife."
He lifts me effortlessly, and my legs wrap around his waist as he positions himself at my entrance. The city lights blur behind me as he holds my gaze, his gray eyes molten with desire and something deeper, something that makes my chest ache with the weight of it.
He enters me slowly, reverently, stretching me in that perfect way my body has learned to crave. Each inch feels like a claiming. A promise to always be mine, more binding than any words we could speak. His forehead presses against mine, and I breathe him into my soul.
"You're mine." The words rumble through his chest and into mine. "Every part of you. Forever."
"Yours." The word comes out broken, breathless. "Always yours."
He begins to move, and the pleasure builds in familiar waves, cresting and breaking and cresting again. The glass fogs beneath my palms as I brace myself against his thrusts. The city watches from below, a million anonymous lights bearing witness to the way this man takes me apart and puts me back together.
His thumb finds the place where our bodies join, circling with a pressure that makes my vision white at the edges. I shatter in his arms with a cry that echoes off the glass, my body clenching around him in rhythmic pulses that pull him over the edge withme. He groans my name against my throat and spills inside me, his hips stuttering through the final waves of release.
Katriana. His little rose. His partner. His future wife and the mother of children we have not yet made.
We stay pressed against the window for a long moment, breathing hard, hearts pounding in tandem, the cool glass the only thing keeping us from floating away entirely.
Afterward, we lie tangled together on the thick rug beneath the windows, our bodies cooling in the climate-controlled air, our hearts beating in sync the way they have since the first night I trusted him with everything I am.
"I love you." The words come easier now than they did in the basement all those months ago. "I love you, Drake Moses. And I am so grateful you claimed my wish."
He pulls me closer, tucking my head beneath his chin, wrapping himself around me like armor made of warmth and devotion.
"I love you too." His voice rumbles through his chest and into my bones. "I've loved you for years. I'll love you for the rest of my life. And when I die, I'll love you from whatever comes next."
I smile against his skin and let my eyes drift closed.
Outside the windows, the city that once felt like a cage now glitters like a promise. The world that tried to break me has become the foundation for everything I never dared to want.
A publishing house with my name on the wall.
A man who would burn the world to keep me safe.
A family that survived the worst and found their way back to each other.
