ALBERT POV
I had rehearsed this a hundred times in my head. Lines I’d tell her, promises I’d whisper, tiny tests of patience I’d put myself through to prove I could be more than the caveman in her stories.
None of that mattered when she said it—the three words—and the world shifted on its axis.
She had fallen into me, given herself like a sun unbolting the sky. I’d thought I’d be the strong one, the anchor. Instead I was a man on the edge of breaking, teeth bared at the world because she had chosen to be mine.
The tulips caught the light and bled color across her skin. She lay there, a goddess braided from wild mornings and glass-cut cheekbones, and Atticus rise up to bow.
“Be my good girl,” I told her then, the words slipping out in a whisper that was half command, half prayer. Becau
