Chapter 20
Damian
The ring sat in my safe for eleven days after I bought it.
Not because I doubted the answer.
Because Tammy deserved a question that did not feel like another event she had to survive.
I had planned dinner twice and canceled both times because something about white tablecloths and public attention felt wrong for the woman who had spent weeks having people try to turn her life into a headline.
Then I burned breakfast and asked in her kitchen.
Of course I did.
Tone called it on-brand growth.
I told him I would fire him from the friendship.
He said I did not have the authority.
Unfortunately, he was right.
The real proposal came that night.
Not because the morning one did not count.
It counted most.
But Tammy deserved the ring too.
I took her to the patio behind my house. The same place the first photograph had been taken before Bishop sent it to remind us that privacy could be stolen.
I had replaced every camera, every blind spot, every weak line of sight.
Then I turned off the lights except for the ones around the water.
No audience.
No announcement.
Just us.
She came outside in a cream dress that made me forget every speech I had prepared.
"Damian," she said slowly, looking at the candles near the table. "What is this?"
"Breakfast apology."
She laughed. "This is excessive for eggs."
"They were bad eggs."
"They were tragic eggs."
I smiled and took her hand.
Then I got down on one knee.
Her mouth opened.
"Damian."
"This is not because danger made me scared.
It is not because I almost lost you and want to hold tighter.
I am asking because after everything, I still want ordinary mornings with you.
Burnt eggs. Arguments. Your sister insulting me in my own house.
Rico knocking on windows like he pays taxes here. All of it."
Her eyes filled.
I opened the ring box.
"I love you. I choose you. And I will keep choosing you without trying to own what was never mine to own. Tammy Brooks, Savannah Elaine Vega, will you marry me again, properly this time?"
She laughed through tears.
"Yes."
I slid the ring on her finger.
Then she pulled me up and kissed me so hard the speech I had prepared vanished completely.
For a while, there was no Bishop, no ledger, no father, no old law firm, no mausoleum. Just Tammy's hands on my face and my arms around her. Her ring caught the low patio light every time her fingers moved against my neck.
"You shaking?" she whispered.
"No."
She smiled against my mouth. "Liar."
I laughed once, low, because she was right.
She kissed me again, softer this time, and somehow that was worse. The soft parts of her always undid me first. Her dress brushed my hands. Cream fabric. Warm skin beneath. A woman choosing me with every name she owned.
"Damian."
"Yes, love?"
"Take me inside."
I did.
And that night, I did not love her like a man trying to hold on to something he feared losing. I loved her like a man who had been chosen and finally understood how it was supposed to go down.
Slow hands.
Open mouths.
Her ring flashing every time she held on to me.
My name leaving her lips like it belonged there.
I took my time with her because she deserved to be loved without fear rushing the room. I kissed every place that had carried grief, every place that had gone stiff from surviving, every place that reminded me she was alive and here and mine only because she wanted to be.
When I pushed inside her, she wrapped herself around me and pulled me closer.
"There," she whispered.
That one word almost finished me.
I moved slow at first, then deeper when her body asked for more. Her hands slid over my back. Her mouth found my shoulder. Every sound she made went straight through me.
I had power in every room I walked into.
But Tammy on top of me, beneath me, around me, looking at me like I was the only man she had ever trusted with that much softness?
That humbled me.
By the time pleasure took us both, the city outside the glass did not matter.
Only her.
Only the ring on her hand.
Only the future we were finally allowed to want.
? ? ?
Later, we sat with our feet in the hot tub and dessert untouched on the table.
She leaned against my shoulder, ring catching the low light.
"You know marriage will not make me easier," she said.
"I did not ask for easy."
"You asked for me."
"Exactly."
She smiled.
"We are going to need rules."
"I figured."
"No making major decisions because you got scared."
"Agreed."
"No hiding things because you think the truth will hurt."
"Agreed."
"No treating me like a fragile secret."
I kissed her temple. "You have never been fragile."
"And you," she said, turning to me, "do not get to bleed quietly."
"That one feels personal."
"It is."
I nodded.
"Agreed."
She rested her head on my shoulder again.
The quiet felt earned.
Not permanent.
Not perfect.
Earned.