Page 172 of Freed
“What’s that?”
“Everything you need to go back to Kansas City.”
My heart stumbles but he goes on before I can speak.
“There’s a house there under another name. Security, but at a distance. Enough money that you never have to ask me for anything. Doctors. Lawyers. Anything you need.” His jaw tightens. “You can have your own life. Your own name. Your own choices.”
I stare at the envelope like it might explode. He’s giving me freedom. The thing I begged for. The thing I thought he would never, ever choose over keeping me close.
“I’m done deciding for you,” he says. “If you want Kansas City, you have it. If you want me nowhere near you, say the word and I will stay away.”
My eyes burn.
“Why are you doing this?”
The answer comes without hesitation.
“Because I love you.”
The room goes still all over again.
He says it standing in the wreckage of everything—his marriage, his loyalty, the old life collapsing around him—and somehow that makes it feel more real, not less.
His voice roughens, but he doesn’t look away.
“I love you enough to let you hate me in peace if that’s what you want. I love you enough to send you somewhere I cannot follow if it means you get to breathe without fear. And I love you enough that I will not use our child to keep you here.”
The tears come harder now, hot and blinding and impossible to stop. Because this is all I wanted and the last thing I expected. I stand on legs that still feel shaky and look at the envelope. Kansas City. I could go back to the place where Siennaand I were so happy. Where our friends are. But it would be a life where Lorenzo is only a ghost and the father of my child and the man I once loved too dangerously.
Then I look at Lorenzo.
My voice shakes. “Do you really think I want Kansas City if you’re not in it?”
“Elizabeth—”
“I love you too,” I whisper, and there it is, the truth that has been clawing at my ribs for weeks. “I hate that I do. I hate how much easier you make it to be afraid than to trust. But I love you.”
His eyes close for one second like the words physically hit him. When they open again, they’re glass-bright and fierce and entirely too human.
I take one step toward him. Then another.
“But if we do this,” I say, “there are no more cages. No more deciding for me. No more using protection as an excuse to own me.”
He nods at once. “Done.”
“No lies.”
“None.”
“No wife.”
A grim, almost stunned smile touches his mouth. “Only until you’re ready to say yes.”
I search his face, looking for the arrogance, the loophole, the Conti in him that might still twist a vow into a command.
I find none.
“What would you have done if I choose Kansas City anyway?” I ask.
