I do. Because it’s her. Because I’ve never been able to deny her anything.
She’s kneeling in front of me, tears on her own cheeks, but her gaze is steady. Full of fire and grace and something so fierce it steals what’s left of my breath.
“You didn’t betray me,” she says softly. “You survived her. That’s what you did. You survived the worst thing anyone could do to a person.”
I shake my head, throat tight, but she doesn’t let me look away.
“What you did for me was you kept on breathing. You kept on fighting. You held on even though you had every reason not to.That’swhat you did for me.”
She slides in between my legs, exactly like she did the day in the shower, when she pulled me back the first time. Her knees touching my inner thighs, her hands on my cheeks, forehead pressed to mine.
“You will not blame yourself for what your body did when it wasn’t under your control. What you will do is let me love you because you deserve to be loved. You hear me?”
The words sink in slow and deep, cracking through every layer of shame I’ve wrapped around myself. I reach for her with shaking hands, pulling her into me until she’s straddling my lap on the floor, her fingers tangled into my shirt.
“It was you, Sophia Sinclair. It was always you. I swear it.”
“I know.”
I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in—vanilla and orange peel and the faint trace of flour that always seems to cling to her now.
My arms lock around her waist, holding her so tight I’m probably bruising her, but she doesn’t complain. She just wraps herself around me tighter, one hand stroking through my hair like I’m something precious instead of the wreckage I feel like.
“I was so scared I’d never get to touch you again,” I confess against her skin, the words spilling out before I can stop them. “That I’d die in that cell with the last thing I ever felt being her hands instead of yours. Knowing that I never got to keep the promise I made you.”
“You kept it.” Her voice is soft but unshakable. “You came back to me. That’s what matters. The rest… we’ll carry it together. All the ugly parts. All the broken ones. I’m not afraid of them, Nazareth. I’m not afraid of you.”
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her eyes are red-rimmed and shining, but there’s no hesitation in them. No disgust. Just that endless, impossible love that somehow keeps choosing me even when I make it so fucking hard.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper.
“You keep saying that.” She leans in, brushing her lips against mine—soft, reverent, a promise. “But I’m the one who gets to decide what I deserve. And I decided a long time ago that it’s you. All of you. The man and the monster. The one who builds houses and the one who bleeds for me. I want every piece.”
My control snaps.
I kiss her like a man who’s been drowning and finally breaks the surface. Deep and desperate,tasting salt from both our tears, pouring every fractured apology and every ounce of gratitude into it. My hands slide under her shirt, palms pressing against warm skin like I need to remind myself she’s real. That she’s here. That she’s choosing me even after everything.
She moans softly into my mouth, fingers tightening in my hair, and for the first time in weeks the darkness in my chest feels a little smaller. Not gone. Never gone. But smaller.
When we finally break apart, foreheads pressed together again, I whisper against her lips. “I’m still terrified I’ll ruin you.”
“Then ruin me beautifully,” she breathes. “I’ll let you. As long as you stay.”
23
SOPHIA
Deep down, I just knew. I knew it in my bones, because I knowhim.
Nazareth Hale.
The man who trembles with restraint every time he touches me, who stops the second he senses even the slightest hesitation in my breath. He’s the one who’s spent years learning how to keep control over his own body because it was so often taken from him. The man who had fought so hard not to take anything from me that I didn’t freely give.
That’s how I know. Because the man I love would never have chosen her. Not broken. Not desperate. Not ever.
On our way back from town, the image burned behind my eyes. Reth, barely conscious, body betraying him because of the poison she pumped into his veins. My stomach twisted again and again and again. She didn’t just steal his body. She tried to steal the last piece of him that still belonged to himself.
That’s why he pushed me away. Not because he wanted to, because he had to. Because the guilt was eating him alive.
