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“I know I do.”

“You anger me.”

“It is so easy.”

“But you also excite me,” he said shortly. “You make me feelalive. When we fight, it is unlike any sensation I have ever known. But when we are not fighting, that sensation remains because this marriage, whatever the heck it is…” He laughed again. “It is real, Selina. It has always been real. I have tried to pretend otherwise. I have tried to lie to myself. I have tried… I have tried desperately to escape its hold on me, but there is no escaping it. I have?—”

“Oh, will you just say it already!” she cried.

“I love you,” he said as he met her eyes.

The anger was gone. The humor, too. He looked into her eyes in a way she recognized perfectly, for she had seen it a hundred times. It was only now that she knew its meaning.

“I love you—I always have. And I do not want you to go.”

“Is that right?” she asked with a smirk, her heart pounding so hard that she thought it might explode.

“This marriage is unhinged. It is devoid of reason. It is the strangest union to have ever existed. But it is also perfect. So perfect that I do not care what others think because so long as I am with you…” He chuckled and shook his head. “To hell with others’ opinions. Your opinion is all that matters to me.”

And so it was, the words that Selina had longed to hear, finally spoken. No lies. No exaggerations. The truth, as she had always known it.

Selina thought to say the same. She thought of telling him how she felt, what she wanted from him and this marriage going forward, that she loved him as he loved her and that was all that mattered.

But at that moment, words simply would not do her justice. There was but one thing that might.

Selina smiled knowingly at him. And then, she leaned in, her lips puckered, and kissed him full on the mouth.

And Benedict returned it in kind. His hands cupped her face. His body pressed against hers. Their lips parted, their tongues danced, and sparks seemed to fly between them. It was not their first kiss. It certainly would not be their last. But it was in a way their most important kiss.

It spoke of the past, and where they had come from.

It spoke of the present, and how they felt.

Most of all, it spoke of the future. A kiss that told of a marriage that was only just beginning, that would grow like a flower under the sun, that was strong and right and all things good, that existed because of the love they had for one another.

It was a kiss that confirmed what they had both known but had been too scared to say until right now—Selina and Benedict were in love. They always had been. They always would be.

Eternal happiness was theirs for the taking.

The End?