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With the need to give her what she wanted.

And then the need to satisfy himself. He wasn’t being purely charitable here. He was willing to do whatever it took to be able to have her. Under him, over him.

His wife.

They walked back out to the garden, where to the side of the altar canopies had been set up, with all the glorious cakes, flowers cascading from everything and guests mingling around. It was a wedding for two very normal people. They could be that. Surely.

He felt an almost religious zeal about it.

So he did everything he could to make the moment magic. He talked to people, which he didn’t particularly like to do outside of a business context. And then when the music began to play he held her close and danced with her.

She put her hand on his shoulder, tentatively, and looked up at him, her eyes sparkling.

“You are beautiful,” he said.

“Adonis… I…”

“Don’t be afraid of me,” he said.

“I am afraid of you, though. I am. Because that night for a moment I thought we could have exactly this. I thought that we could be this for each other. Because only you and I really know… I thought that maybe we could have something. And then you sent me away. I was foolish. And I don’t want to be foolish about you again. I don’t know how to trust people. Not even you. It always feels like the rug could get pulled out from under me. I came so close. So close to believing, but then it was a lie.”

“I didn’t lie to you, though. And I made a mistake sending you away.”

“But if I weren’t pregnant, we wouldn’t be here.”

“No,” he said. Because he would give her honesty. “We wouldn’t be. But we are here now. And perhaps it’s all for the best. Perhaps this is what needed to happen.”

She swallowed hard, nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

“Haven’t I always been there?”

“Until you weren’t.”

“Are you really going to resist me?”

She shook her head. “No. But I have to put up a fight for my own pride.”

He couldn’t help it; he laughed just slightly, and then twirled her away from him and brought her back to him. “Why is that exactly?”

“Because you hurt me. And I don’t think that we properly addressed it.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry it… Being with you like that, the moment was overwhelming.”

“Why?”

She was such a brat.

“Because you are Esme. And I have known you in a certain way for all of our lives, practically. I don’t…”

“Is this the part you tell me about the other women that you slept with?”

“If you need to hear it. I’ve never known any of them. I’ve never wanted to. I never had dreams for a family, for a wedding. It just never seemed like something a man like me could or should have. But here we are. Against all odds. I should have imagined that it could happen, because it started differently than anything else. Because it started with you. I should’ve known that it could never be one time, that it could never be one night. Because you’re more to me than that, and you always have been.”

Her eyes were glossy, shiny with tears. “I am?”

“You know that you are,” he said, his voice rough.

She leaned against him, resting her head on his chest as they danced. And he could feel her relax against him.