Made him whole.
“You have hurt me more than I ever thought I could be hurt,” she whispered fiercely. “But that could never have been possible if you hadn’t also made me the happiest I’ve ever been. I have to think that that’s the point. The hurt and the happiness. All of it wrapped up together. If we do it together, I think that’s love.”
And then he was kissing her, or she was kissing him. But they were together. And all of this was theirs, that fire, that need. All that brightness they made together, to banish the night, glowed between them.
Pascal began to imagine it always would.
“I promise you,” he told her then, his voice as serious as his mouth was hot against hers. “I will never leave you again.”
“I will never leave you, either,” she replied in the same solemn way as if these were the vows that mattered, here on their knees in Rome with all the Christmas lights to guide them. “We will fight for each other, not against each other.”
“You and me, my love,” he agreed hoarsely. “That will make all the difference.”
For each other, not against. Pascal felt that settle there inside him, deep into his bones.
Choose love, she’d implored him.Just once.
And finally, with everything he had and everything he hoped he would be, that was exactly what Pascal did.
He chose Cecilia.
Forever.