“What I feel for you is not a passing fancy, nor some romantic delusion born of circumstance. I love you, Christian.Truly. Deeply. And I will go on loving you whether you stand beside me or a thousand miles away.”
“Fiona—”
“Let me finish.”
She touched a finger lightly to his lips.
“You believe you are protecting me by sending me away. That my life will be easier without you. But you are wrong. My life without you will be half a life. I will survive, perhaps. I will endure. But I will never truly live.”
His eyes glistened. A single tear slipped free, and she brushed it away with her lips.
“I am not saying this to change your mind,” she continued softly. “You have already decided. But I want you to understand what you are giving up. What we are both giving up. I want you to carry that knowledge with you—along with the memory of how I looked tonight.”
“You are cruel,” he whispered.
“I am honest.”
He kissed her again then, fiercely, and she felt the dam break inside him. All the restraint, all the careful tenderness, all the slow reverence—it shattered, giving way to something fiercer, something that tasted of desperation and grief and a love too large to be contained.
His gaze met hers, and she saw anguish, overwhelming and fierce. His hand moved to her, finding the warmth between her thighs. The answering slickness told him she wanted him just as much, if not more. His fingers moved slowly within her, and her body closed around them as though she would never willingly release him. Gradually, he found a rhythm—gentle at first, then deeper, more urgent—until every motion carried the force of everything he could not forgive himself for.
He made love to her like a man drowning, like she was the only air he would ever breathe. Every touch was urgent, every kiss a brand, every whispered word a vow he could not keep. She met him with equal intensity, wrapping herself around him, taking him into her body and her heart and holding on with everything she had.
“I love you,” he gasped against her throat. “I love you, I love you, I love you—”
“Show me,” she answered softly. “Show me again. Show me until I can feel it in my bones.”
And he did.
Again and again, through the long hours of the night, they came together and fell apart and came together once more. They worshipped each other with mouths and hands and bodies, learning and relearning the familiar geography of their desire. At times they laughed softly, at others tears slipped between their kisses, but always they returned to one another, as though refusing to waste a single moment before the dawn claimed it.
At some point, they simply held each other, too exhausted for passion yet unable to let go.
Fiona lay with her head upon Christian’s chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat, trying to fix the moment in her memory—the warmth of his skin, the weight of his arm around her, the quiet certainty of belonging.
“Tell me about the future,” she murmured. “The one we talked about at the chapel. Children and wildflowers and dogs who sleep at the foot of our bed.”
“Fiona—”
“Please. I know it won’t happen. I know you’ve made your choice. But give me this. Give me the dream, even if we can’t have the reality.”
He was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he began to speak.
“We would marry in the spring,” he said, his voice low and rough. “A small ceremony, just family and close friends. You would wear flowers in your hair—wildflowers from the meadow, not hothouse roses. I would cry when I saw you walking toward me. I would cry, and I would not be ashamed.”
Fiona smiled against his chest, even as tears slid down her cheeks.
“After the wedding, we would go to the Continent for a while,” he continued. “Italy, perhaps, or Greece. Somewhere warm, somewhere beautiful. Somewhere we could spend entiredays together without interruption.” His hand moved through her hair, slow and rhythmic. “And then we would come home. To Thornwick. And we would begin our real life.”
“Tell me about our children.”
“Three,” he said without hesitation. “Two boys and a girl. The eldest would have your eyes and my stubbornness. The second would be quieter, happiest in the library with a novel and a cup of tea. And the youngest—our daughter—she would be wild. Untameable. She would climb trees and catch frogs and refuse to wear dresses, and we would love her fiercely for it.”
“Would any of them have the birthmark?”
A pause.
“Perhaps. Probably. But it wouldn’t matter. We would raise them to see it as a badge of honour, not a mark of shame. We would tell them stories about their father—how he hid himself away from the world for far too long, and how their mother found him and taught him that he was worthy of love.”
