AFTER THE WORDS

CHAPTER 22

"What does that mean?"

Roman didn't answer right away.

The silence after his words felt louder than anything he could have said.

"Do you mean you don't want me to leave because of the baby?"

"No."

"Because of the contract?"

"No."

I swallowed.

"Then because of me?"

He looked at me.

Something raw and unguarded crossed his face before he could hide it.

"I shouldn't have said it like that."

"So you didn't mean it?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then what are you saying?"

He exhaled slowly, like the question cost him something.

"I don't know what happens after the contract. I don't want you making decisions based on one conversation in a garden."

"I can't build a future around something you're going to regret tomorrow."

I crossed my arms.

"I'm not asking you to promise me forever. I'm asking whether what you said was real."

His eyes held mine.

"It was real."

"Then why does it feel like you're trying to take it back?"

He was quiet.

I waited.

"Is this about the baby?"

His expression tightened.

"Because if this were only about the arrangement, you wouldn't care what happened to me after it ended."

"If this were only about the baby," he said quietly, "I wouldn't care what happened to you after."

The distinction landed harder than I expected.

He wanted me.

Not simply the continuation of an arrangement.

Me.

"Then what's stopping you?"

His gaze dropped.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

I understood before he answered.

"Is this about Lyra?"

His jaw tightened.

"Roman."

"I stopped wanting things after Lyra."

The words came slowly.

"A future. Happiness. Anything that belonged to me."

His voice had gone rough.

"Everything became about the pack. Survival. The investigation. There wasn't room for wanting anything for myself."

"And now?"

He looked at me.

The answer seemed to cost him more than anything he'd said before.

"Now I want you to stay."

My chest tightened.

He didn't look away.

"I don't know when it changed," he continued. "I don't know exactly when having you here stopped feeling temporary."

I swallowed.

"You're afraid."

His brow furrowed.

"Of what?"

"Of wanting something again."

He didn't deny it.

His silence was answer enough.

"Because part of you feels like wanting a future means leaving Lyra behind?"

His eyes darkened.

"I don't want to leave her behind."

"I know."

"I loved her."

"I know."

The words came easily because there was no jealousy in them.

Whatever Roman had shared with Lyra belonged to the past.

I wasn't trying to erase it.

"I'm not asking you to forget her," I said.

He looked at me.

"I'm asking you not to believe that being happy again would mean what you had with her didn't matter."

His expression shifted.

"I don't know how to do that."

"Neither do I."

A faint, almost humorless breath left him.

"You're supposed to be the one with answers?"

"I'm learning."

That earned the smallest flicker of warmth in his eyes.

Then it disappeared beneath something more vulnerable.

"I was still here," he said quietly. "She wasn't."

His voice broke slightly on the last word.

"And for a long time, wanting anything for myself felt wrong."

I understood then.

Not completely.

But enough.

Roman hadn't been protecting himself from loving someone again.

He'd been protecting himself from the possibility that wanting happiness could make him feel disloyal to the woman he'd lost.

"I'm scared too," I admitted.

His eyes returned to mine.

"I don't know what happens when the contract ends. I know I've gotten attached."

My voice softened.

"I know leaving would hurt in a way I can't undo."

He didn't move.

"But I'm afraid of building hope around someone who might wake up tomorrow and decide this was only grief talking."

"It isn't."

"You don't know that yet."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Neither do I."

The honesty of it hurt more than a promise would have.

Because neither of us knew.

We were standing at the edge of something neither of us had planned for, and there was no contract clause that could tell us what came next.

"I'm not asking you to promise me a future," I said.

He frowned slightly.

"I'm not?"

"No."

I took a breath.

"I'm asking you to stop pretending you don't want one."

His eyes stayed on mine.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then he reached for my hand.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

There was no excuse this time.

No pregnancy scare.

No danger.

No practical reason.

Just his hand moving toward mine, slowly enough that I could have pulled away.

I didn't.

His fingers closed around mine.

Warm.

Steady.

Certain.

Neither of us said anything.

But something changed.

The silence between us no longer felt like two people refusing to speak.

It felt like two people allowing themselves to feel something neither was ready to name.

"I don't know what the future looks like," he said finally.

"Neither do I."

"But I don't want to let go of your hand right now."

My throat tightened.

"Then don't."

He didn't.

We stood together in the garden that had once belonged to grief.

His hand wrapped around mine.

Neither of us pretending anymore that this was only about a contract.

But neither of us brave enough to call it something else.

The contract still had an ending.

That part hadn't changed.

What had changed was that, for the first time, neither of us was certain we wanted to reach it.