Page 162 of Top Shelf

“I know.” Her fingers ease off the note, and she sighs. “I just… I put it there so I’d remember we have to deal with it.”

I want to say there is nothing to deal with. I want to say I love you and you love me, and the rest is only paper. But paper has done damage before. A will. A condition. A contract with an end date. Black ink on white paper has a way of making people bleed while pretending it is practical. And contracts do not dissolve because a woman says I love you in a cottage in Sweden and falls asleep with her hand over your heart.

“We will deal with it, min fru.”

Her eyes lift to mine. “When?”

Now. Today. Before I leave for training. Before you open the studio.

“Before it decides for us,” I say instead.

Her throat moves, and she nods. “Okay.”

It is not enough, and we should keep talking. I know this. So does she. But her phone buzzes again, and my calendar alert sounds from the bedroom, and the eggs are cooling while the day presses on around us. She turns her hand under mine and threads our fingers together, and for another morning, I let that be the thing we choose because this is how so many of our mornings go now.

My thumb traces her wrist, and she lets out a small breath. “Viktor…”

“Do not say my name like that while wearing my clothing if you want to remain focused on your list.”

She grins. “We have to leave in twenty minutes anyway.”

“That is plenty of time for me.”

“You have training, and I have studio stuff to do, and we are not having sex on the kitchen island before nine in the morning.” I look at her, and her eyes narrow. “Viktor.”

“I said nothing.”

“You said plenty with your face.”

I smile, and she points at me with the pen. “Don’t do that either.”

“What?”

“Look pleased with yourself.”

“I am pleased with you.”

It still happens every time I say it. No matter how many times I tell her she is brilliant or amazing or that I am proud, some part of Heidi still looks surprised before she catches herself. As if genuine love without conditions attached is a room she entered by accident, where she should remain quiet in case she is caught.

I reach up and touch the edge of her jaw with my thumb. “You are doing so well, and I am very proud.”

Her throat bobs. “I know.”

“Do you hate me saying it?”

“I hate that it surprises me when you say it.”

“Mm. I will do it more until you believe it.”

“Terrible husband.”

“Beloved husband,” I say.

Her mouth softens, and she looks back down at her list of to-dos with a contented sigh.

Beloved is dangerous now. Many words are dangerous now. ‘I love you’ sits everywhere between us. In the bathroom steam when I press her up against the tiles, in the bedroom when her knee hooks over my hip before dawn, or in the elevator when her hand slips into mine without looking. In the silence every time we unintentionally mention the contract.

I lean in to kiss her quickly, but when her hand circles around the back of my neck, my hand finds her waist to tug her in closer. We’re interrupted when her phone rings across the island again, and she pulls back with a groan.