EMBER’S POV
I blink and the tears spill anyway, sliding down my cheeks into his palms, and he catches them there, holds them, and the expression on his face while he watches me cry happy tears is something I want to photograph and frame and hang on every wall of that house in Portugal.
“When Rafael had me on the floor—” The words come before I’ve decided to say them, pulled from somewhere urgent and deep. “When he was on top of me and my body was betraying me and I couldn’t fight and I couldn’t scream and I thought that was it, that was how my story ended — the only thing that kept me fighting, Knox. The only thing that kept my will alive for one more second. Was you.” My fingers curl into his shirt. “Not the hope of being rescued. Not Sapphire. YOU. The thought of you. The memory of you
