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“And when did it stop?” I ask gently.
“When I thought I didn’t belong to you anymore,” she says, voice cracking.
I look at the ring. Then at her.
“Tell me,” I say. “Tell me what happened with Cristóbal. Your father said you guys got married.”
She nods slowly, like she knew this moment would come.
“I married him under pressure,” she says, staring down at the bracelet. “He manipulated me, claimed it was the only way for me to protect Maksim. He said if I didn’t marry him, he’d take Maksim anyway. I thought—” Her voice breaks. “I thought it was the only way out.”
Fury burns behind my eyes, but I keep it under control. I reach for her hand again.
“I knew something was wrong the moment I heard about it,” I tell her. “But I didn’t know how deep it went.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder,” she whispers. “I was afraid.”
“You survived,” I murmur. “You protected our son. That’s fighting harder than most people ever could.”
She exhales, but the pain in her eyes is still there. Then I say what I’ve been holding onto.
“The thing is… that marriage you had with Cristóbal? It doesn’t count.”
She looks up at me, startled. “What?”
“I never signed the divorce papers,” I tell her. “I had them. But I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t let go of you. I didn’t know where you were, but I knew that if I ever found you again, I wanted to be your husband. Not just on paper.”
She stares at me like I’ve hit her with a tidal wave.
“You’re lying,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “No. I still have the documents. Untouched. You and Cristóbal got married while still legally married to me. It’s not valid.”
She lets out a shaky breath, and her face crumples. Not in pain—but in something like relief. Like validation. She shifts forward and wraps her arms around me, pressing her lips to mine in a soft, desperate kiss.
It’s not like the others we’ve shared. This one is slow, reverent, full of things we haven’t said aloud yet. Her tears wet my cheek, but I don’t pull away. I deepen the kiss instead, cradling the back of her neck.
When we finally part, she rests her forehead against mine.
“You mean I’ve still been yours all this time?” she whispers.
I nod. “If you want to be.”
“I never stopped,” she says, voice trembling. “Not really. Even when I hated you, even when I left… it still felt like I was yours.”
I close my eyes, emotion rising too fast for me to cage.
I pull her back into my arms and press a kiss to her shoulder. “Then let’s make it real this time. Not for show. Not for politics. Just you, me, and Maksim. A family.”
She nods, trembling against me.
And in this quiet room, in the place where everything once ended, I feel something new taking root.
Something real, and definitely something permanent.
49
Epilogue