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It’s hard to breathe. I shake my head, faster this time. “You didn’t tell me all of this. You just pulled away from me. You left me all alone in this.”

“I know.” He sinks to his knees, bracing his hands on either side of me. “I’m sorry. I’ve been fighting with myself every day. Because I’m selfish, trouble. So damn selfish.”

I blink away tears. “So you’re pulling away tohelpme?”

“Nora.” His voice is agonized. “You deserve more.”

“More? But we… We used to talk before this. We used to… it felt like… was I imagining it, West?” My voice shakes. “You and me? That it felt like so much more than just…?”

“No. You haven’t imagined anything. Nothing about this has been fake. Not for me.” His face is level with mine. “I want you more than I’ve wanted anything. I want you here, forever. I want you as my wife. That’s why, selfishly, it took me days to tell you this, because you’ve given me exactly what I want. You.” He shakes his head slowly. “But I can’t handle the thought of you marrying me just to help me out—that you’re thinking of what I need and not what you want.”

He bends forward and rests his forehead in my lap. It’s a genuflection and an apology, his hands turning into fists beside my legs. One of them is bruised over the knuckles. Has he been fighting again? “I’m sorry for everything. Fuck, Nora, I…”

I run my hand over his hair. This is familiar, even when it feels like my insides are breaking. Shattering like the electricity outside the windows, breaking into a thousand tiny pieces.

Breaking open.

“What are you telling me?” I ask him. “That you want to marry me, but you can’t, because it’s not actually what I want?”

West pushes back up. There’s fire in his eyes. “You can’t marry me to make me happy. It has to be to makeyouhappy.”

“To make me happy,” I repeat.

“Yes.” He takes a ragged breath. “I love you. I know that wasn’t on your list of things to practice, but here it is. I love you. And it’s torn me apart, knowing that all the practicing we were doing was for someone else. Someone in your future.” His hands slide closer, gripping the outside of my thighs, like he can’t resist. “I want to be your future. But I won’t let you tie yourself to me unless you know what marriage would mean. Unless you know exactly hownotfake I want it to be.”

“You love me,” I whisper.

“So much that it’s breaking my heart, trouble.” He smiles a little, but it’s a pained expression. “And if you don’t want this…then we don’t get married. I can be your boyfriend. We can keep practicing dating if you want that. I’ll be anything you want, I’ll be your friend, as long as I can be in your life.”

I can’t look at him, but I can’t look away. Can’t think around the roaring in my head.

He loves me.

He wants me.

And he waited to tell me all of this.

I grip the collar of his rain-soaked shirt. “West,” I tell him. “Why don’t you trust me?”

His eyes widen. “I do. I trust you more than anyone.”

“But you don’t trust me to know what I want,” I say. “I told you that I wanted to marry you.”

“Yes. But not because it’s what you craved.” His hands slide up, come to grip my waist. His usual handhold. “I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to tell you all of this. But I was fucking terrified, sweetheart, that I’d see you use your techniques on me. I never want you to humor me.”

“When have I ever humored you?” I hold up my right hand, and the bracelet still around my wrist. “You’re the one person I can get angry with who won’t walk away. You told me that.”

“It’s still true.”

“Then I am angry with you.”

“Good,” he says. “That’s good.”

“You love me?” Something hot tracks down my cheek, and of course, I always cry when I’m frustrated or overwhelmed. Why would this be any different? “You want to marry me?”

“More than anything.”

“Tell me. Tell me all the things you want,” I order. He hesitates, glancing out the windows to the stormy night beyond. “It won’t influence my answer. Trust me to be honest.”