FALLING

CHAPTER 44

I used to think falling in love happened all at once, like stepping off a ledge.

It didn't.

It happened in a hundred small moments I only noticed once I was already standing at the bottom, unable to remember when exactly I'd started falling.

"You're doing it again," I said.

Roman glanced up from the steward's ledger. "Doing what?"

"Holding my hand."

He looked down.

Our fingers were laced together on the breakfast table, his thumb tracing slow circles over my knuckles. He'd been discussing household expenses with the steward for ten minutes without letting go once.

"So I am."

"In front of him."

The steward suddenly became fascinated by the ledger.

"He's looking at the ceiling," I added. "Very hard."

The man coughed and studied the plaster with renewed concentration.

Roman's mouth twitched.

"Would you prefer I stop?"

I considered pretending I would.

Instead, I tightened my fingers around his.

"I didn't say that."

His smile deepened. He returned to the ledger, still holding my hand as though there were nothing unusual about it.

Then he poured my tea without asking.

Two sugars. No milk.

I stared at the cup.

"When did you learn how I take it?"

"The first week."

"You never said anything."

"You never asked."

Something warm turned over in my chest.

It was ridiculous, really. He was an Alpha who could command an entire pack, negotiate territorial disputes, and silence a council chamber with a single look.

Yet he'd remembered how I took my tea.

And somehow, that mattered more than it should have.

"You're staring," he said.

"I'm thinking."

"That sounds dangerous."

"You should be worried."

"I am."

He didn't look worried at all.

"Anything you'd like to share?"

"Not yet."

"All right."

I blinked.

"That's it? You're not going to push?"

"You said not yet." He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to my knuckles, apparently forgetting that the steward was still standing across the table. "I'd rather wait for the real answer than bully you into a quick one."

"Since when are you patient?"

"Since I learned that asking you five times doesn't make you answer faster."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

Roman smiled as though I'd given him something precious.

And perhaps I had.

"Go," I told him. "Pack business. I know you're dying to get back to it."

"I'm not."

"You are. It's in your shoulders."

He glanced down at himself. "My shoulders?"

"They're practically begging for a stack of reports."

"Then you're welcome to come stand beside me while I work."

"Maybe later."

"I'll hold you to that."

He finally released my hand and stood. As he passed behind my chair, his fingers brushed my shoulder.

It was a small touch. Barely anything.

Still, I watched him leave and realized I was smiling at the closed door.

"What happened to you?"

I jumped.

Tessa leaned against the pantry doorway, her arms folded.

"Nothing."

"You're smiling at a teacup."

"It's good tea."

"I've known you long enough to recognize the difference between good tea and a woman thinking about a man."

"I'm not thinking about a man."

"You walked into the doorframe on your way here."

"That was the doorframe's fault."

"Mira."

"Stop watching me so closely."

"I wouldn't have to if you stopped looking at Roman like he personally invented happiness."

"I do not look at him like that."

"Then explain why you're smiling."

"I'm not."

"You are right now."

I pressed my lips together.

They twitched anyway.

Tessa pushed away from the doorway and sat across from me.

"Has he stopped treating every feeling like a diplomatic crisis?"

"Mostly."

"Since the garden?"

"Since the garden."

I turned my cup between my palms.

"He's different."

"Are you happy?"

"Yes."

The answer escaped before I could examine it.

Tessa's eyebrows rose.

"That was fast."

"Was it?"

"You didn't argue with yourself first."

A startled laugh escaped me, but it faded when I realized she was right.

For weeks, I'd examined every feeling I had for Roman as though it were a problem requiring a solution. I questioned the bond, my circumstances, his intentions, and my own judgment.

I had been so determined not to mistake one kind of attachment for another that I'd barely allowed myself to consider what I actually wanted.

Tessa watched me for a moment.

"What are you afraid of?"

I didn't answer immediately.

Down the corridor, a door closed. Somewhere in the kitchen, a kettle began to whistle.

"I've spent weeks trying to work out what Roman means to me," I said. "I never let myself ask what I actually feel."

"And?"

I looked down at my tea.

"I think I'm in love with him."

Tessa didn't tease me.

She didn't gasp or make some triumphant announcement about having known all along.

She simply sat very still.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Not relief? Not gratitude? Not the thrill of being wanted by someone powerful?"

"I've thought about that."

"And?"

"It's still there when he isn't protecting me. When he isn't touching me. When he's wrong."

I laughed shakily.

"Especially when he's wrong. I want him in the ordinary moments. Grocery lists and bad weather and arguments about patrols."

"That's specific."

"It's the only way I know it's real."

Tessa studied me.

"So you've said it."

"I've said it to you."

"That counts."

Her mouth softened.

"You can't unsay it now."

"I know."

"Do you want to?"

"No."

The word hung between us.

Bright.

Terrifying.

And, for once, I didn't take it back.

"What do you want to happen next?" Tessa asked.

"I don't know."

"Try."

I drew a slow breath.

"The contract has terms. An end date." My fingers tightened around the cup. "I told myself that would protect me. If I kept my feelings small enough, I could leave when it was over without losing anything I couldn't afford to lose."

"And now?"

"Now I picture ordinary mornings."

My voice cracked.

"A kitchen. A baby. Roman arguing with someone about the east wing roof. Me complaining that he's working too much. And I'm still here, even after the contract should have ended."

Tessa's expression softened.

"You haven't told him."

"How could I? What if I say forever and he only promised me until?"

"He hasn't said until."

"He hasn't said forever either."

"No." She leaned forward. "But you can't know what he wants unless you let him tell you."

"I'm scared of the answer."

"I know."

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand.

"You can love him without knowing what happens next."

"That sounds like a greeting card."

"It's still true."

I looked toward the door Roman had disappeared through.

"I spend so much time preparing for disappointment that I don't know how to enjoy a good thing while it's happening."

"Has he given you a reason to expect disappointment?"

"No."

"Has he suggested he'll leave you when the contract ends?"

"No. Never."

"Then where is the fear coming from?"

I thought about it.

About the contract that had brought me to Blackthorn. About the future I'd tried to keep at a safe distance. About how easily a person could become important enough to hurt you without ever intending to.

"From me," I admitted. "Not from him."

"Then you have to learn to separate the two."

"How?"

"Start with what you know."

She raised one finger.

"He holds your hand."

"Apparently, he can't stop."

"Two. He asked you to stand beside him."

"He did."

"Three. He chose you in front of the entire council."

I swallowed.

"That's three."

"That's enough to start with."

I let out a breath.

"I can't promise I'll stop being afraid."

"You don't have to. You just can't let the fear make every decision for you."

"I'm not going to demand a promise from him."

"Good."

"I just want to stop hiding this from myself."

Tessa smiled.

"That's a start."

By evening, I'd changed my dress twice.

I told myself it was the weather.

It wasn't.

When I finally entered the dining room, Roman was already seated at the table, reviewing a report beside his plate.

He looked up.

His gaze lingered on me for a moment.

"You look flushed."

"It's the fire."

"We're nowhere near the fire."

"Then it's the soup."

He glanced at the bowl in front of me.

"The soup is lukewarm."

"Stop investigating me."

"I'm not investigating you." He ladled more soup into my bowl. "I'm observing. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Observing involves less accusation."

I shook my head, smiling despite myself.

"Tell me about the boundary dispute," I said, rescuing us both.

He set aside the report.

"A quarrel over a fence line, a cow, and two cousins who haven't spoken in a decade."

"That sounds serious."

"The cow has apparently developed a preference for the wrong side of the fence."

"Traitorous."

"According to one cousin, deliberately so."

I laughed.

Roman continued with a perfectly straight face, explaining how the dispute had escalated until the cousins were threatening to bring their entire families into it.

"And what did you do?" I asked.

"Moved the fence six feet, gave them both responsibility for the cow, and informed them that if they wanted to waste my time again, they could do it while repairing the border road together."

I stared at him.

"You could do this for a living."

"Diplomacy?"

"Cow arbitration."

"It's a growing field."

I laughed so hard I had to put down my fork.

Roman grinned.

It was the kind of grin I hadn't seen during our first weeks together. Easy. Unreserved. Unburdened by the constant effort of keeping everyone at a distance.

And I thought, with startling certainty, I could look at that for the rest of my life.

The thought arrived whole.

It didn't ask permission.

It didn't care that we had a contract, or that our future remained uncertain, or that loving him meant giving someone the power to hurt me.

It settled in my chest and refused to leave.

"What?" Roman asked.

I blinked.

"What?"

"You've been looking at me for thirty seconds."

"You have something on your face."

He wiped his cheek with exaggerated seriousness.

"Is it gone?"

"No."

"Where?"

"Left."

He wiped the right side.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

"You're lying."

"Perhaps."

He leaned back slightly, studying me with an expression that made my stomach turn over.

"What's going on in that head of yours, Mira?"

For one wild second, I almost told him everything.

That I'd admitted to Tessa I was in love with him.

That I was beginning to imagine a life beyond the contract.

That the thought of staying didn't frighten me nearly as much as the possibility of asking him to stay with me.

I wanted to tell him that I wasn't simply grateful for his protection or drawn to him because of the mate bond.

I wanted him.

The man who remembered my tea.

The man who could turn a dispute over a cow into a military negotiation.

The man who had finally allowed himself to cry in a garden and trusted me enough to stay beside him.

I wanted the ordinary mornings, the difficult conversations, and the future I was still afraid to name.

Instead, I smiled.

"Ask me again sometime when it's just us."

His answering smile suggested he already suspected the answer.

"All right," he said. "I'll wait."

And somehow, that made me want to tell him even more.

Because I was beginning to understand something I'd spent my whole life avoiding.

Falling in love wasn't the frightening part.

The frightening part was realizing that, for the first time, I wanted to stay.