He was offering me the freedom to refuse him.
That was why I said yes.
We married in a private courthouse ceremony with Jade beside me and Ronan’s tall, silent security man serving as his witness.
Finn appeared on the courthouse steps before we went inside.
He looked thinner.
Less polished.
For the first time since I had known him, there was no company car waiting at the curb.
“You’re really doing this,” he said.
“Yes.”
“To punish me?”
I almost felt sorry for him.
He could not imagine a world in which he was not the center of every consequence.
“I stopped making choices about you the night the sauce hit the floor.”
He looked at his father.
“And you’re going to let her turn this family into a joke?”
Ronan glanced at me before answering.
“She is my family.”
Finn had no response to that.
Inside the courtroom, Ronan held my hands while the clerk read the vows.
There were no reporters, no chandeliers, and no room full of people waiting to see who had won.
Just Jade trying not to cry, the tall man pretending not to, and Ronan watching me as though my answer still mattered even after I had arrived.
“Are you sure?” he whispered before we exchanged rings.
I smiled.
“I was sure about leaving your son.
It took me longer to understand where I was going.”
I married Ronan Callahan that morning.
Not because Finn cheated.
Not because Ronan’s name frightened half of Chicago.
Not because becoming his wife made the people who had dismissed me suddenly careful.
I married him because he never mistook my pain for an opportunity to control me.
That evening, we ate fresh pasta in my kitchen instead of attending a reception.
Ronan opened the wine while I warmed the sauce.
When I carried the jar toward the table, he reached out instinctively, ready to catch it.
I laughed and tightened my grip.
This time, the jar stayed whole.
