Eva leans her cheek into my palm.
“But then I saw you standing there with your mother, and I couldn’t leave you. I should have taken it as a sign that I’d never be able to walk away. How could I? You’re beautiful and strong and you had something I desperately needed.”
“What was it?”
“Hope.”
“God, Finn. You break my heart, you know that?”
“And you break mine. You didn’t want to accept my fatalistic bullshit. I told you I had seven years, and what did you say? You said—give me seven years. Give me seven months.”
“I would have taken anything you’d give me.”
Past tense. She’s speaking in the past tense. “You were telling me that I was enough, even if I didn’t have a decade to spend with you. I was a fool. I couldn’t hear it then. I couldn’t accept your love then.”
Her dark eyes shimmer with tears. “What about now?”
My chest feels overfull. What happens next matters too much, but I won’t look away from it. I won’t avoid it. The fall is coming either way, but I’m going to soar on the way down.
“There’s nothing I want more in the world. I don’t want to spend my life counting the days. I want to spend every day looking at you. Loving you. Letting you love me back, for exactly as long as we have.”
I get down on one knee, and a tear falls down Eva’s cheek.
Her hand is in mine, warm and soft. It’s home.
Remember. Remember. Remember. I want to remember this even when I have early-onset dementia, even when I’m babbling and out of my mind. It feels impossible that I could forget.
“I should have done this the first time I brought you here. I wanted to. I knew it then, how dangerous you were to me. I shouldn’t have wasted a second trying to convince myself otherwise.” I pull the box from my pocket and press it into her palm. “I love you, Eva Honorata Morelli. I want to give the rest of my life to you. Will you be my wife?”
She swallows hard, more tears shining in her eyes. “That’s what you want?”
“If all you were willing to offer me was scraps, then I’d happily take those. And that’s all I deserve. I know that, too. But I desperately want to marry you.”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes. I will. I’ll marry you.”
I’m quick to take her into my arms and kiss her, but she’s already crying. Happy tears. Eva wipes them away while I open the ring box. She gasps at the sight and starts to cry again.
Her hand trembles when she holds it out to me.
“This is one of the greatest honors of my life,” I tell her. Remember. And then I slip the ring onto her finger. It’s an antique in the Hughes family. Priceless, but it means nothing without the warmth of her body. Remember, goddamn it. Don’t forget.
There’s a moment of stillness. We both look at the ring. A tangible sign of a real relationship. Nothing fake about it. Nothing pretend. Nothing transient. This ring means forever.
Then her arms go around my neck and her mouth is on mine and she said yes, she said yes, she loves me.
I need her so much. Her need matches mine. I take her down to thick blankets stretched across the deck and prop myself over her and let myself look.
Remember.
I wanted this that first night, too.
“I remember you like this,” Eva breathes. “You were over me. You were surrounded by stars, but I couldn’t see them. I could only see your eyes. Nothing but you.”
“I’m never going to forget you like this, Eva. I swear to God.”
She’s beautiful in the warmth of the sunset. My ring on her finger. Our baby in her belly. She’s going to be my wife. There’s nothing that could be better than this.
“You look so happy,” she murmurs, tracing a finger over my cheekbone. “Not the way you were before, though. Not laughing or teasing or charming the panties off women everywhere. That seemed happy, but underneath it felt like something else. Something manic.”
“That wasn’t real. This is. This is true happiness, darling.”
My wife.
Then I can’t stand to be separated from her. Not for another moment. I pull her out of her clothes. Eva does the same to me. She pulls me down over her.
I’m free to feel her skin against mine. Free to press kisses to her collarbone, and lower. This is what I wanted to do that first night. I wanted to worship her, and I didn’t. I held back. I told myself it could wait.
I’m never going to do that again.
I kiss her everywhere I can reach while she arches underneath me. No project is more important than memorizing all her soft places. All her curves. Eva shivers under my touch, begging, and when I push myself inside her, she cries out.
I don’t care. Let everyone hear how much she loves this. How much she loves me.
For the first time, there’s no fear between us. I feel like a different person and the one I was always meant to be. I’ve spent years searching for a sense of peace, and I’ve found it.
Eva holds me close and lets me watch her take her pleasure in my body. It’s a gorgeous sight. She shakes out her heat over me.
“Let me see you,” she demands, her voice sweet. Her hands on my face keep me in view. “God, Finn. You’re everything I need. It was so hard to pretend I didn’t want you.”
“Don’t pretend, Eva. Tell me every day. I’m going to insist on it.”
I don’t have to hold myself back. I let my pleasure have its way until I’m pulsing inside her. Eva’s body moves with mine like she’s meant for me.
She is.
She rolls us over before I’ve finished and the sway of her hips keeps me hard. So hard that I have no choice but to come for her again. Eva balances herself on my chest, holding on with her nails, and takes every last bit of pleasure she can find.
When it releases us, she leans down to kiss the fingernail marks she left.
“Don’t kiss them too much.”
“Why?”
“Because I want them to stay forever.”
“Oh, I doubt they will. But I can always make new ones.”
I catch her chin in my hands and pull her close so I can see this word, this promise, on her lips. “Always?”
“Always.” It’s a promise and a declaration of wild, untamable hope. I’m going to feel that with her. I’m going to feel everything with her. Not because I think the curse is broken. Not because I really think I’ll make it to the age of forty with my mind intact. But because I’m willing to live as if it could happen, if it means having even a few years with Eva. I’ll give her seven years. Or maybe only seven months. And when I’m lost to the world, when I leave her in mind, if not in body, she’ll forgive me.
“Kiss me again,” I murmur.
Eva leans down, her hair falling over my face, and gives me just what I want.
She gives me so much more.
21
FINN
There’s one final step to take before my life with Eva begins—my dad’s last meeting at Hughes Industries. His official goodbye. His retirement, to the public at least.
I plan it carefully, the way I’ve done everything carefully for years. Even though all I want to think about is my ring on Eva’s finger and the future we have together.