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She felt her heart break. He wanted her to have a fairytale. It felt important to him. She could see that. It had never occurred to her that this would bother him.

“Why does this matter to you?”

“I want to believe we can be okay. Money fixes a lot of things, Esme. Not everything.”

It was a mirror of the conversation she had just been having with Adonis.

“I know. I know exactly what you mean. But the problem is I… I do care about him. Very much. I’m not sure there’s a word for what he is to me. For the way that I feel about him.”

“It might be love,” Alex pointed out.

“I think that’s extremely optimistic of you. Maybe it would be if we were other people. Maybe it would be if we were a little bit more functional. But as it is… We just don’t want to blow this up.”

“What were you thinking?”

“Excuse me?” she asked

“I don’t want the details. Of what happened that night. I don’t need to know that. But after all those years of knowing each other. Of having…not that relationship, what did you think would happen being with him like that?”

“I didn’t think,” she said. “I just…”

“I knew that you had feelings for him. I didn’t know he had them for you.”

“Well. Join the club. I didn’t know… I didn’t mean to meet up with him. I didn’t know that he owned the club. I didn’t know that it was going to happen like that. I know he didn’t. I didn’t think… For one moment I thought maybe it could be something real. I thought maybe something magical was happening between us. A miracle. I mean, we already kind of got a miracle, growing up the way that we did in getting here. We already got a miracle. I thought maybe I could have another one. But then after…he told me to leave.”

“I should kill him,” Alex said.

“I don’t want you to do that either. I need you to let me figure this out. I need you to let me sit in the consequences of my own actions. You can’t blame him more than you blame me.”

“I blame him for hurting you.”

“That’s fair. I blame him for that too.”

“He shouldn’t have touched you if he wasn’t going to keep you.”

The words burned with conviction; she really did appreciate her brother for that.

“I’m really lucky. To have you. And Adonis and I… We are going to make something of this. I promise you. Your niece or nephew is going to have a great uncle, and a great yard, and a great house. People who love them. That’s more than we had. We can still just do all this together.”

“But I was right,” Alex said. “You did want him to be in love with you.”

She rejected that. She wasn’t willing to use those words. She wasn’t willing to let it go there.

“We’re going to be happy, Alex. We are. We’ll figure out a way.”

“That isn’t supposed to be what this is. I didn’t want you to be making do.”

The funny thing was, she couldn’t really imagine making a different choice now. Alex might’ve been the driver behind the marriage idea. But now she was committed to it. Now she wanted it just as badly.

Because now they had built something. A semblance of it anyway. The house made it feel real. The wedding dress made it feel real. Even though things with Adonis didn’t feel quite right. She couldn’t turn back now. She wouldn’t.

When the plane landed, they were ushered to a beautiful château, with the gorgeous outdoor garden area. A bedroom was appointed to be her staging area, and as strangers that she had never met before did her hair and makeup she felt slightly lonely for the first time. What would it be like to have a mother on a day like today? Friends. More than just Alex and Adonis. They had learned how to make money. But they had not learned exactly how to become real humans.

But that wouldn’t be a question that her child had before their wedding. Should the room have family in it? It would. There would be friends, too. They would go to a regular school. They wouldn’t have to teach themselves math out of stolen textbooks, or eventually on stolen devices using stolen Wi-Fi.

They would get a real education. They would have real support.

It would be different. And it would be different because she and Adonis were making the right choice today. She had to keep that in mind. She had to stay strong with it.