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“You owe me nothing.” I swallow. “Not this house. Or your time and certainly not your affection.”

Her eyes fill with tears.

I want to reach for her. But I don’t. Because this is her choice. And for once in my life, I intend to let someone else make it.

“I love you,” I say.

The words come easily. More easily than I ever imagined they would. I have said them in every way but this one. In the dark, while she slept. In the driveway, with the gates standing open. It is time she heard them plainly.

“I love you, April Stevens. And I would very much like you to stay.”

She makes a small sound.

“But if you wish to go, I will help you. Because I would rather see you happy somewhere else than keep you here simply because I cannot bear to let you leave.”

For a long moment, April doesn’t say anything. “You’re giving me the house.”

“Yes.”

“The house you loved more than anything. The house you got cursed over.”

“Yes.”

“Because you love me.”

“Because I love you.”

She stands. Crosses the room. Stops in front of me, close enough to touch. She doesn’t, though.

“Do you know why I called the realtor?”

“Because of our agreement.”

“Because I thought it was what you wanted.” Her voice wobbles. “You’re free now, Gabriel. You can go anywhere. Paris. California. The moon, probably, if you throw enough gold bars at it. And I figured the last thing a man who’s been stuck in one place for a hundred and forty-three years needs is an unemployed girl with pink hair tying him down.”

I stare at her. “You thought I would leave?”

“I thought you should get to.” She swallows. “So I was trying to make it easy.”

Good heavens. We have each been trying to set the other free.

“April,” I say. “I told you at the gates. Wherever you are.”

“I know. But people say things in driveways.”

“I do not.”

Her laugh breaks in the middle. A tear slips down her cheek.

“I don’t want the house,” she says. “Okay, that’s a lie. I love this house. I love the stupid yellow chair and the plumbing that sounds like a dying walrus and the library and the oak tree. But that’s not why I’d stay.”

She takes one more step. And now she touches me. Her palm flat over my heart.

“I’d stay for you. Even if the house was crumbling around us.”

Something in my chest unknots. Something that has been clenched tight.

“Then stay,” I say. “Not because you owe me anything. Because you want to.”