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"You think everything is your responsibility."

I drop my hand.

"What?"

"Every mess. Every consequence. Every time something goes wrong, you just take it." She's not shouting anymore. That's worse. "You carry all of it because that's what your mother trained you to do, and you never once thought to ask me to help you carry it."

I try not to let that land.

It lands anyway.

"It's my fault this happened," I say.

"No." She shakes her head. "It isn't your fault that Jeremy is a bad person. It isn't your fault that he used access and leverage to get ahead."

"He only had access because I gave it to him."

"That still doesn't make it your fault."

"It made it my problem."

"And that," she says, stepping closer, "is exactly the issue."

I look at her.

Really look at her.

And something in me just... stops fighting.

"I loved you from the first day I saw you."

The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

Aria goes completely still.

I should shut up. I should find something calmer. Something more controlled. Something more worthy of the moment.

Instead I keep going, because I am apparently done being careful.

"You were at your desk in the Hawkeyes office arranging your pens by color." My voice sounds wrong. Rougher than I want. "Your hair was falling out of that bun you used to wear. You kept tucking it behind your ear."

Her lips part.

I step toward her.

"I had my own building. Six floors of reasons not to be there. And I spent six straight months finding excuses to work out of the Hawkeyes office because you were in it." One short, humorless laugh. "I told myself it was synergy. Visibility. Whatever corporate lie sounded less pathetic."

"Everett—"

"No." My voice roughens more. "Let me finish. Because if I stop now I'm going to lose my nerve and I have done enough damn losing."

She goes quiet.

"I loved you before France. Before the studio. Before I knew what to do with any of it." My throat tightens. "I married you because I thought it would save us both. And I sent you away because I thought it would save everyone else. Not one part of that changed what you are to me."

Silence.

She wipes at her face with the heel of her hand.