It didn't happen the way I'd imagined.
Not that I'd imagined it. I wasn't the kind of man who imagined love confessions. I wasn't the kind of man who said those words at all. They weren't in my vocabulary. They'd never needed to be.
But if I had imagined it—if I'd been someone else, someone softer, someone who believed in fairy tales—I would have pictured something different.
Candlelight. Roses. A quiet moment when the world felt safe.
Instead, it happened at 3 AM, in the middle of a fight, with tears on her face and blood on my hands.
---
She'd been distant for three days.
Not cold. Not cruel. Just... elsewhere. Like her body was in my penthouse but her mind was somewhere I couldn't follow. She'd stopped reading by the window. Stopped watering her plant. Stopped looking at me the way she used to look at me—like I was a puzzle she was trying to solve.
She looked at me like I was a problem she was trying to escape.
I didn't handle it well.
I never handled anything well.
"You're leaving," I said.
It was 2 AM. She was sitting on the couch, staring at the city lights. I was standing in the doorway, my suit still on, my tie loose, my hands shaking with a rage I didn't understand.
She didn't turn around.
"I'm sitting on the couch."
"You're leaving in your head. I can see it."
"Then stop watching me so closely."
"How can I stop? You're all I see."
She closed her eyes. Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath.
"That's not healthy," she said.
"I'm not healthy. You knew that when you got in my car."
"I didn't know anything when I got in your car."
"Then why did you?"
Finally, she turned.
Her eyes were tired. Dark circles. Red rims. The kind of tired that came from crying when no one was watching.
"Because I was curious," she said. "Because you were dangerous. Because I'd spent my whole life being safe and good and predictable, and you were none of those things. You were a storm. And I wanted to see what it felt like to stand in the middle of one."
"And now?"
"Now I'm soaked. And cold. And I don't know how to get dry."
---
Something in me cracked.
Not broke. Cracked. The way ice cracks before it shatters.
I crossed the room. Knelt in front of her. Took her hands in mine. They were cold. They were always cold.
"Do you want to leave?" I asked.
She looked at me. Her lips parted. Closed. Parted again.
"I don't know."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
I held her hands tighter. Pressed them to my chest. Right over my heart, where the blood was pumping hot and fast and terrified.
"Then let me give you a reason to stay."
"How?"
I opened my mouth.
And the words that came out weren't the ones I'd planned.
---
"I love you."
They fell out of me like stones. Heavy. Unpolished. Too sharp to hold comfortably.
She stared at me.
"What?"
"I love you." The second time was easier. Not easy. Just... less impossible. "I know I'm not supposed to. I know I don't deserve to. I know I've done things—terrible things—that should make it impossible for someone like you to feel anything for someone like me. But I don't care. I love you. I love you, Christabel. And I don't know what to do with it."
Her eyes filled with tears.
Not the slow, quiet tears I'd seen before. Fast ones. Heavy ones. The kind that came from somewhere deep and painful.
"Don't," she whispered.
"Don't what?"
"Don't say that to me. Not now. Not like this."
"How should I say it? When should I say it? Tell me, and I'll do it. I'll say it on my knees. I'll say it in front of the whole world. I'll say it every morning and every night until you believe me. Just tell me what you need."
"I need you to not love me."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
I let go of her hands. Sat back on my heels. Stared at her.
"Why?"
"Because I can't love you back."
---
The silence that followed was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.
I'd been rejected before. Plenty of times. By women who saw through my charm. By enemies who refused to be intimidated. By my own father, who'd looked at me on his deathbed and said, You were never what I wanted.
But this was different.
This was her.
This was the woman who'd smiled at me like the sun. Who'd let me take her. Who'd stayed in my penthouse and drunk my tea and let me hold her in the dark.
And now she was telling me she couldn't love me back.
"Why not?" My voice was hoarse. Broken. I didn't recognize it.
She wiped her eyes. Breathed. Wiped her eyes again.
"Because I don't know if I'm capable of love," she said. "Because I've spent my whole life watching people use it as a weapon. Because my parents said it to each other while they were destroying each other. Because my sister says it to me when she wants something. Because every time someone has said 'I love you' to me, it's been a lie dressed up as a promise."
"I'm not lying."
"I know."
"Then what's the problem?"
She reached out. Touched my face. Her fingers were cold and trembling and gentle.
"The problem is that you mean it," she said. "And I don't know what to do with something real."
---
I should have been angry.
The old me would have been angry. Would have stood up. Would have reminded her—with words or with force—that she didn't get to reject me. That I was the most powerful man she'd ever met. That I could make her life hell if I wanted to.
But the old me was dying.
And the new me—the one she'd created without meaning to—was just a man kneeling on the floor, holding the hands of a woman who'd just broken his heart.
"Then let me teach you," I said.
"Teach me what?"
"What real looks like. What it feels like to be loved by someone who doesn't want anything from you except you. I'm not your parents. I'm not your sister. I'm not anyone who's ever said those words to you before. I'm just... me. The monster. The killer. The man who's done unforgivable things. And I love you. I love you, and I don't need you to say it back. I just need you to let me show you."
She was crying openly now.
Sobbing, almost. Her whole body shaking.
"You're going to destroy me," she said.
"Probably."
"That doesn't scare you?"
"It terrifies me." I pulled her off the couch. Pulled her into my lap. Held her against my chest while she cried. "But not as much as the thought of never trying."
---
We stayed like that for an hour.
Her curled against me. My arms around her. The city lights flickering through the windows.
She cried until she had nothing left. Until her sobs turned to hiccups turned to silence. Until her breathing evened out and her body relaxed and she was just... there. Heavy and warm and mine.
"I'm scared," she whispered.
"I know."
"I've never been loved before. Not really. Not the way you're talking about."
"I know."
"What if I can't do it? What if I try and I fail and I hurt you?"
I pressed my lips to her hair. Breathed her in.
"Then we'll be hurt together," I said. "That's what this is. Two broken people trying to make something whole. It might not work. It probably won't work. But I'd rather fail with you than succeed with anyone else."
She pulled back. Looked at me.
Her eyes were red. Her face was blotchy. Her nose was running.
She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"I don't love you," she said.
The words should have hurt.
They didn't.
"Not yet," she continued. "I don't love you yet. But I think... I think I could. If you're patient. If you're careful. If you don't give up on me."
"I'm not patient. I'm not careful. And I never give up."
She almost smiled.
"I know."
---
I carried her to bed.
Laid her down. Pulled the covers over her. Climbed in beside her.
She curled against my chest. Her hand pressed over my heart.
"It's beating fast," she said.
"You make it beat fast."
"That's not a good thing."
"It's not a bad thing either. It's just... real."
She was quiet for a long time. I thought she'd fallen asleep.
Then she spoke.
"Tell me again."
"Tell you what?"
"That you love me."
I pressed my lips to her forehead.
"I love you," I said.
"Again."
"I love you, Christabel."
"Again."
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
She closed her eyes. A single tear slipped down her cheek.
"Keep saying it," she whispered. "Until I believe it."
I held her tighter.
And I did.
I said it until my voice was hoarse. Until the sun came up. Until her breathing evened out and her hand went slack and I knew she was finally, truly asleep.
I said it to the empty room.
To the city below.
To the god I'd never believed in.
I love her. I love her. I love her.
And somewhere, in the space between sleep and waking, she smiled.