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I look over and see she hasn’t even taken a bite yet as I swallow my first bite and take another. Shrugging, I reply around a mouthful of pizza. “Tastes good.”

“That’s not what I asked.” She tilts her head and narrows her eyes a bit. “What’s your favorite?”

I think on it for a second, wiping my mouth with a napkin I brought out for us along with the pizza and drinks. Setting my food down, I reach for a drink and take a sip.

“Meat lover’s, if I had to pick just one. Supreme is also good, a close second, though they usually put more vegetables than meat on it. But pepperoni is nice too.”

I pick up my pizza and start eating again, and she tosses her piece back into the box, clearly frustrated at something. Probably me.

Or herself.

“Why didn’t you say? We could have gotten the meat lover’s. I can always pick off things I don’t like.”

It’s my turn to tilt my head at her, swallowing the food in my mouth before I speak. “But why not have what you want?”

“Because it’s selfish and you don’t get what you want.”

I huff, and a sad smile crosses my lips before it’s gone faster than it came. I hope she didn’t see it. It was a reaction I tried to correct as soon as it registered in my brain that I was doing it. “You get to be selfish for as long as you want. Don’t worry about me. I’m happy enough with what I have.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t like it. It doesn’t seem right. It’s not fair.”

Oh, Sunshine. I don’t have it in me to tell her what she already knows—that life, fair, and right aren’t words that go together often. Sometimes not at all.

Instead, I pick up her food and hold it out to her. “Please eat.”

Both our wounds are healing nicely, but she still needs her strength. She deals with enough stress on a regular basis to burn the same number of calories as a forty-five-minute gym session.

“Why do you stay?”

It’s out of her mouth before she can take it back. I watch her eyes grow wide at hearing her own voice say something I bet was only meant for her mind to hear.

Does she want me gone? My president just walked away, leaving me here with her. Is she curious how long I plan to stay? Does she want me to?

I don’t answer. Not because I don’t have one, but because she doesn’t want to hear it. She knows it. I know she does. She can see how I feel and why I do the things I do.

But she still pushes me away. I understand some of the reasons why. Not all, but the big ones. I’ve been watching her for a long time. Studying her, waiting for her. I know more about her than she might know of herself at this point.

She’s scared.

But she doesn’t need to be. Not of me. Because, like I told her and showed her before, I put her needs above my own. Not because I don’t care about mine, but because she needs to know what it feels like to be thought of first. Not second, not last, but first. And sometimes, the only.

“Eat,” I say once more, holding the food right to her mouth.

She huffs, knowing I won’t answer her, even if she didn’t mean to speak out loud, and takes a bite with a growl.

“Sexy,” I say with a smirk.

She rolls her eyes and grabs the pizza from me to look out at the horizon as she does as I ask.

I take a second to memorize this moment, knowing our time is fleeting but begging… praying each moment becomes a lifetime of memories. Because it has to.

When she finishes and lies down on the blanket, I do the same, taking the liberty to hold her hand in mine.

Staring at the stars that begin to appear, I make a simple wish.

That she’ll always remember me like this. Just like I will her.

Chapter 31 - Natalie