Chapter 17
Showing up only after I no longer needed him.
He stepped closer.
"Emily, I know you don't want gifts. I know you don't want promises."
I stiffened.
"Vincent—"
"Just listen."
Against my better judgment, I did.
"I loved you badly."
The words surprised both of us.
He looked down.
"I thought because I came home to you, that meant you were the person I chose."
I said nothing.
"I thought because I gave you everything, I was being a good husband."
"You gave me things."
"I know."
His voice cracked slightly.
"I understand that now."
Lily moved in my arms.
He looked at her.
"Sophia was..."
He stopped.
I waited.
"She was unfinished history."
That was honest.
"I kept telling myself unfinished meant important."
I swallowed.
"And Paris?"
He looked directly at me.
"I chose her."
No excuses.
No sick mother.
No delayed flight.
No confusion.
Just the truth.
"I chose to go."
My eyes burned.
Five months earlier, those words would have destroyed me.
Now they hurt differently.
Like pressing an old bruise.
Vincent continued.
"And by the time I understood what that choice meant, you had already made yours."
"Yes."
"I love you."
I closed my eyes.
For years, I had wanted to hear it.
There it was.
In my small living room.
No diamonds.
No audience.
No music.
No grand gesture.
Just Vincent saying the thing I had once built entire hopes around.
I opened my eyes.
"I believe you."
His face changed.
Hope.
Immediate and terrible.
I stopped it.
"But I don't want to be married to you anymore."
The hope disappeared.
"How can both be true?"
"Because love isn't always enough."
"Emily—"
"I loved you when you left for Paris."
He went still.
"I loved you when I called from the bedroom floor."
His eyes dropped.
"I loved you when our daughter was born."
I adjusted Lily against me.
"And then something changed."
"What?"
"I stopped needing you to become the man I thought you could be."
He looked at me for a long time.
"I can become that man."
"Maybe."
"Then give me time."
"I am."
Confusion crossed his face.
"With Lily."
I nodded toward our daughter.
"You have time to become the father she deserves."
His voice lowered.
"And you?"
"I'm not a reward waiting at the end of your improvement."
He closed his eyes.
The sentence sat between us.
Painful.
Final.
"I don't know how to let you go," he said.