His head jerks back in surprise. “I never blamed you! There’s no way you could have known what was in her bag.”
“Then why have you been avoiding me? You never even called the hospital to see how I was doing.”
“I called every day to get updates.Three timesa day! And I did my best to make sure you didn’t feel like you’d been abandoned.” He looks pained as he closes his eyes. “If you let me in, I’ll do my best to explain.”
I hesitate, torn between needing to blurt out my suspicions about his parents and wanting to protect him from it all, but I can’t pretend I don’t want him here. When I nod, he climbs through the open window and sits on the sill. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you, and that I haven’t been clearer about what’s been going on. I wanted to see you, but I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”
Every nerve ending in my body is on high alert, but I hardly dare to hope. “From what?”
With a deep breath, he stands up and steps toward me. “I let you walk out of my life once without knowing how I truly felt about you, and I won’t let that happen again.”
I feel like we’re balancing on a precipice, but I don’t know which way we’ll fall.
“I love you, Wren. End of sentence, no conditions. It’s not ‘I love youif’ or ‘I love youbut.’”
It sounds so perfect, but it’s not the truth. Our relationship is the definition of conditional. We agreed that it’s “I love you until.” That was the deal: together until we’re rescued, and not a moment more.
He crosses the room and lifts me up in one fluid motion. The button of his jeans presses against the inside of my thigh, and if I lean in even a fraction, I know he’ll kiss me.
“What happened to ending this on the island?” I ask.
He lifts me up higher, his breaths turning jagged. “I’ve said a lot of stupid things in my life, but none as daft as that,” he says in a low voice. “When they loaded you into that helicopter, I knew I’d never be able to say goodbye to you.”
“But nothing has changed,” I whisper as he presses a slow kiss to the underside of my jaw.
“Not yet, but I’m working on it.” His voice is as raspy as the stubble scraping across my skin.
I jerk back as my pulse hammers. “What do you mean?”
He slowly releases his hold on me. “If I could find a way out of this for us, would you want me to?”
I blink in surprise, wondering if he already found out what I did, but I don’t want to say anything until I’m one hundred percent sure. “How?”
“I can’t explain it yet, but I’ve spent every minute since your doctors told me that you’d be okay trying to figure this out, and I think I’ve found something.”
Hope is a dangerous emotion, because it makes me believe in impossible things. Theo and me together in Chicago. Him waiting for me after class with a maple latte in his hand, and no one from the Firm controlling either of us. I didn’t think it would ever be possible, but maybe I was wrong, and all the things I wished for in the middle of the nightcancome true. Maybe we can still spin our tragedies into happy endings.
“How soon will you know?”
“Before the coronation,” he says.
“That’s in less than forty-eight hours.” It doesn’t feel like enough time.
“I’ll make it work.” Theo grins. “Now let’s get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“On our first date, Wheeler.” He winks, and his smile is brighter than I’ve ever seen it.
I feel dizzy with hope as I swipe on mascara and lip gloss and change into a miniskirt and a tight turtleneck sweater in the bathroom. When I come out, Theo groans and drags a hand over his face.
“Not good?” I raise an eyebrow, baiting him, because I know I look good. For maybe the first time ever in all the time we’ve spent together, I’m not a mess.
“Too good, and you know it.”
He climbs back out onto the tree branch, I follow him, and soon we’re shimmying down the tree and running like criminals across the garden, pretending that two bodyguards aren’t waiting patiently for us outside the gate. He could easily open it, but instead he hoists me over the metal bars, and thankfully this time I don’t twist my ankle when I land on the damp sidewalk next to a cream-colored Vespa. Theo buckles a helmet strap under my chin, and then puts one on himself. I take a seat behind him and wrap my arms snugly around his torso, and he kicks the moped to life. My arms tighten as a surge of adrenaline shoots through me, and I feel a sickening lurch as I flash back to the plane plummeting into water.
“You all right back there?”
