Second Chance Vows novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Lamp On

I stood at the window for an hour with the notebook in my fist.

The party was still going on below, with music and a drunk man singing in the garden.

Cosima did not follow me.

She sat on the bed in her slip with her knees drawn up, and I felt her watching my back.

I knew it now, and every muscle in my shoulders knew it.

"You can stop," I said at last.

"Stop what?"

"Watching me. You've done it for three weeks."

"I'd like to keep doing it," Cosima said. "I like what I see."

I laughed, and it was not a good laugh.

"We had terms," I said. "One year. You would leave when your sight came back. That was the bargain, and you broke it before I knew."

"My sight came back before the bargain."

"Then the terms were a lie."

"They were a lie for three weeks, and I'm sorry." She put her feet on the floor. "I am done with them, Perry. I don't want a year. I want you to come over here and be angry where I can see you."

I turned around.

She was standing, with her hair loose and her arms at her sides, and the lamp lit her from the side.

She was not hiding any more.

"I am not angry about the terms," I said.

"Then what?"

"I'm angry that I fell in love with a woman I thought I was saving," I said. "And she was never in danger from me."

"I was in danger," Cosima said. "I just wasn't in danger from you."

I crossed the room, and I did not stop until I had her face in my hands.

"Look at me," I said.

"I am looking."

"Good."

I kissed her hard.

She made a sound in her throat and pulled me against her by the open front of my shirt.

There was no bargain in it, and no hesitation, and neither of us was careful.

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