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“I don’t like them, but I’m not so oblivious that I can’t see the depth here. You want to give them the chance to tip the scale in the right direction. I don’t want you to think I don’t respect that. Some people hurt us without knowing. Some people mean the best and fall short. You have a place to land with me. Always. I know you’ll pick it if you hit a point where there’s a choice to make. I know you’d pick me if I said, yeah, baby, come home right now and never come back here again.” He kisses my forehead. “Right?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah.” He rests his cheek against my head. “The thing is, I don’t want to break your heart because I’m selfish and desperate to have you now. I want what’s best for you. I want to love you right. I want to love you fully—the way you love me. I want to be the one who drops everything and obeys. I want to trust you like that. The way you look at me is so…” Breathless, he swears. “…beautiful. I want to learn how you do it. I want the feelings you give me to be ones you have, too. I want the depth of this love to go both ways.”
Sniffling, I blink and feel a tear cascade down my cheek. “You really mean that?”
“Yeah, baby. I do.”
I bury my face against him and soak being loved and trusted and respected in. This is exactly like one of the daydreams I’d sink into to cope with the boredom and the loneliness of living in a crystal tower as a porcelain princess.
From the moment I first saw Wynnter, reasons to love him appeared. Every day, there was something new. But I never once hoped he’d look at me and want to love me the way I’ve always wanted to love him.
Ever since he wrinkled his nose at my name, told me Devina sounded pretentious, and said December suited me far better, I thought he’d settled me firmly in the sibling box of his brain. We were August and December, his little sisters with our little matching names.
I thought it was cute, if heartbreaking, but the heartbreak didn’t stop me from embracing the first and only gift I ever expected to receive from the man I adored.
He named me, so I became his December.
“I don’t want to go back inside,” I whisper.
“I don’t want to let you.”
“You’re welcome to play the villain, if you’d like.”
He nestles, shaking his head. “And, what? Kidnap you? Coerce you into marrying me like Alister did with August?”
“Perhaps fewer theatrics. And less consent. I’m thinking…you have a lovely basement with no exits or real windows. What if you just lock me down there?” I wiggle. “You could visit me at meal times and make me do terrible things to earn my food.”
“Dece.”
“Hm?” I flutter my lashes.
“You frighten me.”
Planting my fingers to my lips, I say, “Who? Me?”
Adjusting his weight, he cocks his leg out and settles my rump on his thigh before moving his now free hand to my hair. “I’m not gonna keep you in my basement. No matter how enticing that sounds. It’s mostly storage down there. You deserve better.”
“I’d keep you in my basement, if I were strong enough to put you there.”
“I’m honored.”
Stretching, I kiss his cheek and fall deeper when he smiles for me.
Eyes warm, he touches his forehead to mine and frees a breath. “Thank you for giving up sleep to see me right now. I was losing my mind.”
“I’m sorry for putting you through this. If it’s too much to ask…I will leave it all behind. Right here. Right now. I’ll…leave them behind. For you.”
He runs his rough thumb beneath my eye. “Yeah, I know you would. As though the very idea isn’t bringing you to tears. We’ve endured a lot already because neither of us had the nerve to chance messing up what we had. If you love them, take the chance this time. Maybe…like with us…things’ll end up better than we expect.” Carefully, he lets me back down to my feet and lifts a shoulder. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
I could be disowned. Or they could try to use their money and power to cause problems for him. Or…
Wynnter kisses me, cutting off my thoughts. “Maybe that was the wrong question… What’s the best that could happen? Let’s dwell on that possibility instead, okay?”
“Okay.”
The best…huh?
