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She didn’t negate him And his heart pounded harder in the thick silence

“I’veyou” She sighed, licked her lips, rubbed one thuain “I’ve been confused, overwhelmed and sometimes a little lonely these past weeks But then”

She pulled his hand to her cheek, and then kissed the center of his palaze une work, Zafir And not just for the baby But for you and me”

He didn’t knohat to say in return

It hat he had known she would give in return for his commitment, it hat he wanted of her for years to coe it must have cost her to say it to him, shook him from within

And because he didn’t kno to stop it fro inside of him, didn’t kno to form a suitable response, because it was a promise the likes of which he had never known in his life, he bent and captured her mouth with his

He worshipped her with his mouth, his hands and his body while her soft declaration took root in his veins, his cells, in his very blood Like the roots of a gnarled tree that stood proudly in the courtyard of the palace, planting itself tight and deep within him

The expression in her eyes, the joy in her smile, the tenderness in the way she touched him and kissed him, as if she couldn’t contain it any out of her every breath, it haunted hi after she fell asleep and he extracted himself froes and pinks

And then, just like that, in the space of one night, no, just a few hours, he felt as if he had lost it all Before he had even grasped it properly yet

As if all that he had achieved was so little next to that one small declaration from Lauren, which he hadn’t earned

Through the following four days that he allowed hih his return to the palace, through every breath he took, her words haunted him

It haunted hiht of it, until every time he saw Lauren, it felt as if he deserved her, her open smile, her affection, less and less

Until every word of hers felt like a small lash in his skin

But this was the life he had wanted all along, wasn’t it? The life in which he had everything?

CHAPTER TWELVE