The man who threatened to carry me over his shoulder down the aisle and marry me at knifepoint is both my captor and my liberator. He makes me weak and strong at the same time.

Before, he didn’t give me an option. Now, there’s a choice. But he’s determined to push me away.

If I’m wise, I’ll take that freedom and run for my life. Because the heart of the man who captured and saved me will always belong to the woman who broke it. The man who calls himself my husband will never be mine.

Only, there is no choice for me any longer. It’s way too late to walk away.

I’m in this war now … until death do us part.

His words hurt, slicing right through me like he almost did with the blade of his knife. Yet that’s not the truth I see when I look at his actions. That’s not the hope I hold on to when I close my eyes at night and shed lonely tears with him right beside me in bed.

Swallowing back those tears that burn at the back of my eyes, I lift my chin. “You’re wrong, Sav. A man who does everything with his own self-interest in mind won’t give his life to save me and my baby.”

The statement pierces him like a sword. I see it in the way he winces as he’s forced to face the simplest of truths when all his arguments are exhausted and only his considerate behavior is left to speak for itself.

We face each other like pieces on a chess table. It’s a checkmate move. It’s playing dirty. I admit that. Pushing him into a corner to confess something I desperately need to hear isn’t honorable. But I don’t know how else to open his eyes to something he won’t allow himself to believe. Maybe he thinks it will be a betrayal of his love for Rachele. But people can love more than one person. They can get hurt and trampled and find happiness again. He lost his first love, but he’s my first love. If he gives us a chance, we can be so much more than lust and s€x.

He turns away with that wounded look on his face, running away from the future we could’ve had. And I’m still thoroughly and utterly ruined, a silly, opportunistic woman who put her heart on the line in a gamble she lost.