Chapter 191
Lena's POV
The city lights blurred past the car window, but I couldn't focus on them. My eyes kept drifting to our joined hands resting on the center console, Rowan's thumb tracing slow, absent circles against my knuckles.
I'd spent two years learning not to read into gestures like this. Two years training myself to accept surface-level kindness without searching for deeper meaning. Two years perfecting the art of not hoping.
But that was the problem, wasn't it? I had hoped. Quietly, privately, in ways I'd never admitted even to Emily. I'd hoped that the coffee I left on his desk would make him smile. That the way I remembered how he took his scotch might matter. That someday he'd look at me and see me.
He never did. Or rather, he saw the role I played—the competent wife, the useful attorney, the woman who made his life easier—but never the person beneath.
So I'd learned. Stopped hoping. Stopped expecting.
Except now he was giving me things I'd never dared ask for. Promises. Declarations. That look in his eyes when he said I love you like he meant to carve the words into my bones.
And it terrified me.
Because when you have nothing, you can't lose anything. But when someone hands you everything you've ever wanted and says here, this is yours—the potential for devastation becomes infinite.
"You're quiet," Rowan said softly, his voice cutting through my spiral.
I blinked, realizing we'd stopped at a red light. He was watching me with that careful attention I was still getting used to, the kind that made me feel transparent.
"Just thinking," I said.
"About?"
I hesitated. The old instinct to deflect rose up, but I pushed it down. If we were doing this—really doing this—I couldn't keep hiding.
"About how much scarier this is," I admitted. "When you actually give me something to lose."
His hand tightened around mine. The light turned green, but he didn't move immediately, holding my gaze for one more breath.
"I know," he said quietly. "I know I'm asking you to trust me when I haven't earned it yet. But Lena—I'm going to. Every day. I promise you that."
There it was again. A promise. The thing I'd never had before.
I wanted to believe him so badly it hurt.
"Okay," I whispered. "I'm trying."
"That's all I'm asking."
---
By the time we got home, exhaustion had settled into my bones. The emotional whiplash of the evening—the gift box, the panic, the confrontation, the explanations—had left me wrung out.
"Go shower," Rowan said gently, his hand warm at the small of my back as we stepped into the apartment. "I'll lock up."
I nodded, too tired to argue, and retreated to the bathroom. The hot water helped, washing away the tension in my shoulders, the phantom feeling of that card burning in my hand. By the time I emerged in my sleep shirt and shorts, toweling my hair, I felt almost human again.
Rowan was already in bed, propped against the headboard with his reading glasses on, scrolling through something on his tablet. He looked up when I appeared, and something in his expression softened.
"Come here," he said, setting the tablet aside and extending his arm.
I hesitated for only a heartbeat before crossing to the bed, sliding under the covers and letting him pull me against his chest. His arms came around me, solid and warm, and I felt the tension I'd been carrying all evening finally start to ease.
For a long moment, we just lay there. His hand traced idle patterns on my shoulder. My ear pressed against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
Then, so quietly I almost missed it, he said: "Marry me."
I went still.
"Again," he continued, his voice low and certain. "Marry me again. For real this time."
I lifted my head to look at him, my heart suddenly pounding. His eyes were serious, no trace of hesitation or performance. Just Rowan, looking at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
"Not a contract," he said. "Not an arrangement. Just—us. You and me. Because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I want it to mean something."
My throat tightened. I'd imagined this moment before, in the early days of our contract marriage, before I'd learned better. I'd pictured grand gestures—roses, champagne, maybe a ring hidden in dessert at some expensive restaurant. The kind of proposal that looked good in photos, that could be packaged into a story to tell at dinner parties.
But this—lying in bed in our pajamas, no audience, no performance, just two people in the quiet dark—this was what I actually wanted.
Not the spectacle. Not the proof. Just the truth of it. The feeling of being chosen, not for what I could provide or how I could fit into someone's life plan, but for me.
"I don't need a big production," I said, my voice catching. "I just need to know it's real."
"It's real," he said, his hand coming up to cup my face. "Lena, I swear to you, it's real. I love you. I want to build a life with you. I want to wake up next to you and come home to you and fight with you and make up with you and just—be with you. For as long as you'll have me."
Tears blurred my vision, but I was smiling. Actually smiling, the kind that came from somewhere deep and genuine.
"Yes," I whispered. "Yes, I'll marry you."
The smile that broke across his face was like sunrise. He leaned down and kissed me, soft and sweet and devastatingly tender. I kissed him back, pouring everything I couldn't say into the contact—all my fear and hope and fragile, terrifying trust.
The kiss deepened, his hand sliding into my damp hair, mine clutching at his shoulder like he might disappear if I let go. It went on and on, unhurried and thorough, until I couldn't remember why I'd ever been afraid.
When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he rested his forehead against mine.
"I love you," he said again, like he needed me to hear it.
This time, I didn't question it. Didn't search for hidden meanings or wait for the other shoe to drop.
"I love you too," I said, and meant it with everything I had.
He pulled me back against his chest, his arms wrapping around me like a promise. I settled into him, my head tucked under his chin, listening to his heartbeat slow back to normal.
Outside, the city hummed with its usual nighttime energy. But in here, in this quiet room with this man who'd finally learned to see me, I felt something I'd never quite managed before.
I felt safe.
And I felt ready to believe in us.