His mouth tightens, a tensing of his jaw that mirrors the tensing of his body, as if the battle just became more unbearable inside him. His hands fist at his sides.

“Don’t go out with someone just to get back at me,” he rasps.

“I’m not, we just need to let go,” I whisper, pleading with him with my eyes.

He moves closer, until he’s my whole world‎, his thigh grazing mine. ”Don’t,” he says, his voice low and broken, his brows drawing together in an agonized expression, “be with another man. I can’t stand thinking of you with anyone.”

I swallow. “You’re with her.”

“Am I really?” he says. “I’m with another woman and I’m so fucking in love with you—I can’t see past you.” He narrows his eyes as he looks down at me. “All I’ve wanted in my life was one fucking chance with you, Bryn…” His eyes are raw with pain. “I wanted to deserve you. I waited years, and even decades later, I wanted to know what it was about you I found so sweet and innocent, and at the same time so damned seductive. I wanted to make you feel safe, special, I wanted to help you make your dreams come true…because you, Bryn, you were my own dream coming true for me. The family I wanted…I wanted to give it to us both. You and me. Our kids would have no grandparents but they’d have two parents who loved them and were madly in love with each other…”

“Stop.”

“I love that when you needed, you came to me. That I was the one you trusted with this dream. I told myself this was our time. Maybe not ideal, but that this man I am now, that this is the man you were waiting for. And now this,” he grates. “Tell me how to let you go when every day all I look forward to is fucking seeing you. Tell me how to let you go when I look in your eyes and see I hurt you.” He looks at me, wondering, frustrated.

“Then choose me,” I breathe.

His gaze flickers in surprise.

“Choose me, Aaric. I wanted you to do the right thing, but I don’t even know what the right thing is anymore. I want you to choose me. I want to love you and love your son or daughter even if it’s someone else’s. I want to be your girl and I want to be by your side. I want you like I want Manhattan. House of Sass. Like I want to have called my parents that night. We have enough regrets, Aaric. Can you tell me you won’t have none if we do this?”

His eyes darken.

“I know you want to be the best father possible, but you can. You can be happy, you don’t have to sacrifice us to be the best dad, we can still do this, we can have an us. Just not if you marry her. This is our last chance, Aaric.”

He drags a hand over his face, his jaw tight, his eyes flashing fire. “Do you realize my child will grow up without a father? Would you wish that on my kid?”

“You can be there! Can’t you see?”

I start to cry, and I drop my head and sniffle quietly because I’m so undone. Christos’s energy is tumultuous as he somehow manages to shift even closer, shielding me from the onlookers.

He lifts his hand and when he cups my cheek, I turn my head instinctively, the touch so familiar, so achingly familiar, the tears stream a little faster. He draws me gently into the back of his car, parked right in front of the warehouse.

He shuts the door behind us and, as if he needs the distance, sits right across from me as I keep crying. He’s looking out the window, his eyes red.

He scrapes his hand down his jaw. He doesn’t seem to be breathing, his jaw set, his posture closed off and tight. It seems to be costing him everything to keep himself on a leash, because he doesn’t even speak.

We stay like that for a while, sitting with our prides, our reality, and holding onto our love as tightly as we need.

“Loving you fucking hurts,” I accuse, trying to stop crying.

He reaches out to take my shoulders, his forehead to mine—his eyes livid with pain. “You think this is easy for me?” He grabs my face, frustrated and trembling, his voice a hiss. “You’re the only thing that makes me feel really alive. I’m not living without you. I’m just here—a money machine, all for what. Huh? When I die tomorrow who would’ve cared for me, really, other than my brother? If I’m in some accident, if something happens to me, who will make me cling to life? Who will make me want to stay here?”

“Stop it, Christos. You’ll have your son, or your daughter.”

“But I won’t have you, love.” He takes my chin and looks at me, at my whole face, and says, “If I have joint custody, would you be there for my child? As if it were yours?”

“I’d love it as hard as I love you,” I sniff, my tears streaming down my cheeks as he rubs them with the pads of his thumb. “I’m sick of feeling like it’s wrong to love you because you’re not mine to love.”

“I love you,” he says. “I want a family, and I want it with you.” His eyes gleam mercilessly as he wipes the rest of my tears. “It kills me to hurt you when that’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted to do. It kills me to let you go because I fucking can’t let you go. I’m choosing you. It’s always been you. Will you choose me too? Choose me and my child too?”

I swallow, and his eyes have all of this tenderness inside them that I can barely breathe. “Are you certain?” I ask, sucking back a breath.

“I’m certain. I have this disjointed idea of being the kind of father I never had. Maybe I even don’t believe I deserve to have a family, a real family, like I’d have with you because I failed Leilani and my daughter once.” He cups my face and sets his forehead on mine, inhaling me. “Maybe why I was settling for Miranda in the first place. Something surface. Nothing real.” He eases back, and I keep getting tears, even though the emotion behind them is woefully different than when I started crying. Because Christos looks all raw, all open, all mine as he keeps the back of my neck in his hand and pins me down with the most glorious eyes.