"Okay?"
"Okay, we're doing this. You and me and..." I place my hand over his on my stomach. "And whoever this turns out to be."
Gabriel kisses me—deep and slow and achingly tender. When he pulls back, there's something in his eyes I've never seen before. It takes me a moment to recognize it.
Peace.
"I need to tell you something," he says quietly. "About tonight. Before you came back."
I tense, some instinct warning me. "What?"
"Zach is dead."
The words settle over me like a cold blanket. I wait for shock, for horror, for some appropriate response to learning that the man who shattered my world just hours ago has been erased from existence.
Instead, I feel only tired.
"Did you kill him?"
"Yes."
"Because of what he told me?"
"Because he threatened you. Because he tried to destroy what we have. Because—" Gabriel's arm tightens around me. "Because he would have kept coming. Men like Zach don't stop. They nurse their grievances, sharpen their weapons, wait for the perfect moment to strike. I removed the threat."
I think about Zach in that coffee shop—his casual cruelty, his obvious pleasure in my pain. I think about the journal pages, the photographs, the careful orchestration of my devastation. I think about what he might have done next if Gabriel had let him live.
"Okay," I say.
Gabriel looks at me, surprise evident. "Okay?"
"I'm not going to pretend I'm sad he's gone. He wanted to hurt us—both of us. He used my history as a weapon." I turn to face him, letting him see the truth in my eyes. "I'm not naive, Gabriel. I know what you are, what this life involves. I'm not asking you to change who you are. I'm just asking you to let me in. To trust me with the truth, even when it's ugly."
"Always." He says it like a vow. "No more secrets. No more lies."
He helps me to my feet, then lifts me in his arms as if I weigh nothing. I let out a startled laugh.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking you to bed." He starts toward the door. "You need rest. You're carrying my child."
"I'm pregnant, not dying."
"You're exhausted. You've had an emotionally devastating day. You've driven across the city twice and confronted traumas most people couldn't survive." He silences my protest with a kiss. "Let me take care of you. Just this once, don't fight me."
I want to argue—the independent part of me bristles at being carried, being managed—but he's right. I'm exhausted in a way that goes beyond physical tiredness. The day has hollowed me out, and the thought of simply surrendering to someone else's care is suddenly, overwhelmingly appealing.
"Just this once," I murmur against his shoulder.
He carries me up the grand staircase to his bedroom.
"No one else has been in here," he says as he lays me on the bed. "Just you."
"Why?"
"Because you're different." He stretches out beside me, pulling me against his chest. "Because you're mine in a way no one else has ever been."
I should object to that—the possessiveness, the claim of ownership—but I'm too tired to fight, and the truth is, I don't want to. Not tonight. Tonight, I want to be held. I want to feel safe. I want to close my eyes and trust that when I open them,he'll still be here, and so will I, and the fragile new thing growing inside me will still be possible.
