Chapter 14
The ring was simple.
Smaller than I expected from Roman.
Beautiful.
“If you marry me, I don’t want it to be because I saved you.”
“It won’t be.”
“I don’t want it because I love Emma.”
“It won’t be.”
“I don’t even want it because you love me.”
I frowned.
“What else is there?”
He smiled.
“Because you choose me.”
I looked at the water.
Two years earlier, another man had stood on this dock and made a choice.
A monstrous one.
For a long time, I believed that moment had destroyed choice itself.
Ethan chose Vanessa.
Ethan chose fear.
Ethan chose money.
Ethan chose himself.
Owen had paid for it.
But maybe the answer to one terrible choice was not to stop choosing.
Maybe it was to become careful about what—and whom—you chose next.
I looked at Roman.
“Yes.”
He blinked.
“That was extremely fast.”
“You talked too much.”
“Claire.”
“Yes, Roman.”
“You’re certain?”
“I am.”
He laughed.
The mafia boss actually laughed like a boy.
Then he kissed me on the same dock where I had once believed my whole life ended.
We married four months later.
Small ceremony.
Forty-two guests.
Roman argued that forty-two was tiny.
I argued that he had invited three armed men whose names I did not know.
“They’re cousins.”
“They’re carrying guns.”
“They’re cautious cousins.”
Harry cried before I reached the aisle.
Sophie, now thirteen, carried the rings.
Emma, nearly three, refused to scatter flower petals and instead dumped the basket onto Roman’s shoes.
Everyone laughed.
There was an empty chair in the front row.
On it sat Owen’s green dinosaur.
Some people told me later it was sad.
It wasn’t.
It was honest.
My happiness had an empty chair in it.
It always would.
I did not become the woman I had been before my son died.
That woman trusted easily.
She believed marriage certificates made promises real.
She thought terrible things announced themselves before entering your home.
I missed her sometimes.
But I did not want to be her again.
The woman I became knew better.
She checked the exits.
She asked questions.
She kept her own bank account.
She never ignored the cold feeling in her stomach when someone’s words and actions did not match.
She knew love without respect was hunger wearing perfume.
And she knew wealth was not the same thing as safety.
Roman could have bought me a hundred mansions.
May you like
He nearly tried.
The safest thing he ever gave me was the ability to say no without punishment.
