Page 191 of Top Shelf

I nod. “Yes.”

“And you thought this would hurt less?” Her eyes search mine, wet and furious and so full of love I nearly cannot stand it. “Viktor, I don’t want to be handed a door every time you’re scared I might leave.”

“I thought I was making it easier for you to decide.”

A tear slips down her cheek, but she doesn’t wipe it away. “I don’t want losing you to be easy.”

My lungs burn as I watch her tears fall.

“And I didn’t leave the apartment because I didn’t know whether I wanted you. I left because I love you so much that I knew I would crawl into your arms before I’d finished being angry. I had a studio launch screaming for every functioning brain cell I had, Viktor. I just needed a minute.”

The words break me open. “I am so sorry, my love.”

She looks down at my signature again, then inhales deeply before ripping the papers straight down the center. My whole body goes still as Heidi tears them again. And again. The pieces fall across her desk in pale strips until finally, she picks up the blue ribbon and places it on top.

“There,” she says in a shaky voice. “Very fucking tasteful.”

I stare at the ruined papers, then up at her. “Heidi.”

“I want to keep calling you my husband.” My heart stops as she swipes angrily at her cheeks. “I want your shoes next to mine wherever the hell we end up living together, because I don’t want a home that doesn’t have you in it. I want your hand on the back of my neck when everything gets too loud, and I want to wake up shoved onto six inches of mattress because my six-foot-four defenseman husband requires an entire California king to himself.”

“I do not—”

“You do.”

I close my mouth, and a watery laugh breaks from her.

“I want your terrible sad chicken in our fridge, and I want you texting me to eat lunch and buying every fucking pistachio product in Denver because I once made the error of telling you I had a favorite flavor.” My vision blurs, and she continues. “And I want to be your wife when there is no contract left telling me to be.” Her voice cracks. “Because I love you.”

There is no room left in my chest for the feeling that pulls through me. For a beat, we look at each other, and then her face crumples. I take a step forward, then stop.

“Heidi,” I say, voice barely there. “Can I hold you?”

The question breaks her, and she closes the distance herself. When she reaches me, she pushes into my chest hard enough to make me step back, but my arms close around her. The first full breath I have taken in a week leaves my body against her hair, and I hold her with every careful piece of myself.

“I don’t want us to end,” she whispers into my shirt again.

“I do not want this either.” My eyes close and I breathe her in. “You made me so greedy, Heidi. I had a life I thought was enough, and then you showed me what it was like with you in it.” My voice roughens, but I do not stop. “Now I want more. I want every fucking life with you in it.”

She pulls back enough to look at me, and the tears on her face shine under the low office light. “No more decisions for me, Karlsson. Even beautiful ones wrapped in fucking ribbon.”

“Okay,” I murmur, pressing my forehead to hers.

She grips the back of my jacket. “I missed you so much.”

I close my eyes and bury my face in the crook of her neck. “I love you so much.”

“Jag älskar dig också,” she says back.

A breath shudders out of me at her words repeated back to me in Swedish. “I will stand wherever you want me, Heidi. Behind you, across the room. On the street, if that is what you need.” My voice scrapes over the final words. “But never in front of you again.”

She shakes her head, and an aching smile breaks through her tears. “I just want you beside me.”

I curl a strand of her hair in my finger. “Then that is where I will be.”

“Beloved husband,” she whispers, fingers clutching at the lapels of my jacket. “You are so stupid sometimes.”

I bend my head until my forehead touches hers again. The event continues beyond the office door, and the playlist shifts. The first notes of an upbeat song come through the wall, muffled by voices and laughter and the soft pulse of the studio full of people who came here for her. I go still.