Declan walks through the door carrying coffee and pastries like he always does, but this time he stops. Just looks at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
"Bad night?"
"Every night's a bad night." I take the coffee gratefully, not meeting his eyes. "Thanks for this."
He sets the pastries on the counter, reaching for Maeve where she's fussing in her carrier. "Let me take her."
I should argue. Should maintain some kind of boundary. But I'm exhausted and he's offering and Maeve immediately quiets when he lifts her, pressing her face into his neck with a contented sigh.
Traitor.
"Have you had enough time to think?" His voice is careful, neutral.
My stomach drops. Right. Yesterday's conversation. When I cried and he said impossibly perfect things and I ran away like a coward.
"We need to talk." I force the words out. "Actually talk."
"Okay." He shifts Maeve to his other shoulder, watching me. "About what?"
Everything. Nothing. All the things I've been too scared to ask for because asking makes them real.
I take a breath. "Why are you here now?"
His brow furrows. "What do you mean?"
"I mean—" I gesture between us, helpless. "Eight years, Declan. You didn't come after me. Not once. And I get it, I told you not to in the letter, but you've never been great at following instructions when you think I'm wrong." The words taste bitter. "So why now? Why show up after all this time?"
He's quiet for a long moment, his hand rubbing circles on Maeve's back in that automatic way he has. "I was trying to give you what you wanted." He takes a deep breath. "In the letter, you said to let you go, that it was better for both of us. So I did." His jaw tightens. "I thought I'd pushed too hard. Thought maybe you really felt like I was trying to force you into something. I genuinely believed I'd destroyed you by being selfish enough to keep you when you deserved better."
The coffee turns to lead in my stomach. "Declan?—"
"I spent all this time thinking I'd lost you and still I couldn't let go." He looks at me then, and the raw pain in his eyes makes my breath catch. "But then I saw you again. I didn't go looking. I just saw you, and I couldn't do it anymore. And being around you..." He trails off, shaking his head. "I don't believe the letteranymore. I don't believe you thought we weren't right for each other or that you left because you didn't love me."
My heart hammers against my ribs. This is it—the moment where I can keep lying or tell him the truth. Where I can protect him or destroy us both.
"Can you admit that?" His voice is soft but insistent. "Can you tell me you didn't leave because we weren't right?"
I should lie. Should stick to the story I wrote in that letter, the one that let him move on and build a life without me dragging him down.
But I'm so tired of lying. So tired of carrying this alone.
"I left for you." The words come out broken, barely a whisper. "I left because you were going to give up everything—your family, your business, your whole future—because I couldn't give you children. Because staying with me meant losing everything you'd worked for."
He closes his eyes briefly. "Zola?—"
"Don't." I can't look at him, can't watch whatever expression is on his face. "Don't tell me it didn't matter. I know it mattered. I saw what it cost you when you told your uncle no. I saw—" My throat closes. "I couldn't be the reason you lost everything."
"I really wish you hadn't done that."
The words are so quiet I almost miss them. When I finally look up, he's watching me with an expression I can't name—grief and frustration and something that might be hope.
"Done what?"
"Made that decision for me. Decided what I needed, what I could handle." He adjusts Maeve, his movements gentle despite the tension in his voice. "I would have chosen you, Zola. I did choose you. You're the one who left."
Shame burns through me, hot and acidic. He's right. I did leave. I made the choice for both of us because I was so convinced I knew better, so certain I was protecting him.
Maybe I was just protecting myself.
