Chapter Seven
I LOVE YOU.
It started this morning, already there when Chelsea woke, as if the words had been waiting for her on the other side of sleep.
I love you.
She couldn't stop thinking of it.
I love you.
The words were a breathless echo when Olivio rolled her on top of him, his fingers clasping her waist as he taught her to take the lead, and oh, the newness of it, the terrifying thrill of being above him instead of beneath, of seeing his face while he guided her, his jaw clenched and his eyes burning up at her with a hunger that would have frightened her if her body hadn't already decided, without consulting her brain, that it knew exactly what to do.
She moved, and his grip on her waist tightened.
She moved again, and a sound escaped him, low and rough and wrenched from somewhere he hadn't given it permission to leave, and the power of it, the knowledge that she had caused that, undid her so completely that her rhythm faltered and her hands flew to his chest to catch herself.
He didn't let her fall.
His hands were already there, steadying her, and then his body was moving with hers, and Chelsea could not think, could not breathe, could only hold on and bite her lip oh so very hard because the words were right there, pressing against her teeth, demanding to be said—-
I love you.
She couldn't say them. Not yet. Not like this.
So she let her body say what her mouth wouldn't, and when the pleasure broke over her and she came apart in his arms, it was those three words that filled her chest like a sob she refused to release, and her husband gritting her name in his own undoing was the closest thing to an answer she was going to get.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
The words continued to linger as he carried her to the bath, and they were still there, glowing and insistent, as he settled behind her in the warm water and his hands moved into her hair.
He kneaded her scalp with that impossible thoroughness, and Chelsea's toes curled underwater, and the I love you sat in her throat like something sweet she was saving.
He insisted on bathing and dressing her. It was, he had told her with a straight face on the third morning, his new favorite hobby.
I like seeing you working hard not to blush, not to squirm, and failing anyway.
She hadn't had any answer for him then, could only turn even more pink under his gleaming gaze. But now she knew why his care undid her so completely. It was because of those three words.
I. Love. You.
And because she loved him—-
"Do you believe Plato was real?"
Olivio, who was in the act of taking a sip of his coffee, lowered his cup and gazed at her instead. "Why are you asking me this?"
She fluttered her lashes at him, and just as she hoped, the silly act had her gorgeous husband shaking his head.
"Humor me, please?"
They were having breakfast on their bedroom balcony, and the morning had decided to cooperate.
A breeze carried the faint green smell of the terrace garden that Chelsea had discovered on her second day here and had immediately fallen in love with, mostly because someone, she suspected one of the housekeeping staff, had planted a row of herbs between the ornamental grasses, and the scent of rosemary and basil drifting up to the balcony at this hour made the penthouse feel less like a showpiece and more like a place where someone actually lived.
Chelsea had set the table herself this morning, the way she did every morning now, over the initial bafflement of staff who could not understand why Mrs. Cannizzaro wanted to do things that people were being paid to do for her.
But she liked it. She liked choosing which mugs to use (hers was white with a chip on the handle that she'd grown attached to; his was black and immaculate and twice the size of hers, because apparently even his coffee consumption operated at a different scale).
She liked arranging the fruit and the pastries on the blue ceramic plate she'd found in the back of a cabinet, the one that didn't match anything else in the kitchen and was probably there by accident, which was exactly why she loved it.
She had briefly considered arranging the strawberries into a heart shape and then had given herself a very firm talking-to about maintaining some semblance of dignity.
She liked that when Olivio came to the table each morning, he never commented on any of this.
He simply sat down and drank from whatever mug she'd chosen for him and ate what she'd arranged and let her fuss, and the not-commenting was its own kind of tenderness, though Chelsea doubted he would ever describe it that way.
Since she was by now familiar with her schedule, she knew she had about thirty minutes to make her case.
"Very well. I do, yes."
"But do you know there are only seven documents we have that prove his existence?"
"Interesting."
"What about Julius Caesar?"
"I believe he existed." A pause, and the corner of his mouth did something that wasn't quite a smile. "But you're going to tell me the proof of his existence is based on a similarly small number."
"Ten, to be exact." She said it quickly, the way she always did when she was building toward something and was afraid she'd lose her nerve if she slowed down. "And both men were born hundreds of years B.C."
Her husband leaned back against his seat, and the way he was looking at her now had Chelsea biting back a smile.
"Go on."
Olivio crossed his arms against his chest, and Chelsea lost the battle as a sheepish smile formed over her lips. "You already know where I'm heading with this, right?"
"Perhaps."
She shook her head, saying ruefully, "There's no perhaps about it. I know you know where I'm going with this, and I guess...I'm surprised you've let me get this far?"
So am I, Olivio thought.
Ever since Aivan and Sienah had sorted out their marriage troubles, and only by God's grace, as his sister-in-law would always gently emphasize, even his father and Selena had enjoyed a resurgence of their faith.
It was why his father had mellowed of late, and Aivan was no longer reserved in showing his love for his wife.
Despite all the noticeable changes, however, Olivio had always distanced himself from his family's attempts to speak to him about their beliefs. It simply wasn't for him, he had always thought.
But for some reason, when it was his wife talking about it...
"Over twenty-one thousand!"
Olivio raised a brow at the way his wife had blurted out a figure in the midst of the contemplative silence between them.
"There are over twenty-one thousand documents that speak of Jesus' existence and the New Testament in general," Chelsea said in a rush, "and some of them were written by individuals who weren't even Christians."
While speaking, his wife retrieved something from the storage rack under their breakfast table: a slightly worn copy of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ, with more than a handful of colorful page tabs poking from its sides.
The book had the look of something that had been read more than once and argued with in the margins, and he found his gaze lingering on the faded spine, the dog-eared corners, the way her fingers held it, not casually, the way one held a book one was lending, but close to her body, the way one held something that mattered.
"You asked me last night about what I wanted for a wedding gift—-" Chelsea was suddenly shy, her voice dropping to something just above a mumble, and her gaze skittered away from his to land somewhere around the blue ceramic plate. "And I was hoping you'd find time to read this."
Her heart pounded as her husband leaned forward, and then he was cupping her chin to tip her head up—-
Their gazes met, and this time, the darkness of his eyes yielded nothing. He was looking at her the way he looked at contracts: with absolute attention and no readable intent.
"Why do you want me to read this, Chelsea?"
Because I love you, she thought.
She didn't know when it started. Why it came to be or how it was even possible in so short a time. All she knew was that she loved him, would always love him, and since loving someone also meant seeking the highest good for the other person—-
"I want you to go to Heaven."
The words simply tumbled out, and she found herself holding her breath, not knowing what to expect—-
"Alright."
Her eyes went wide.
She searched his face for any trace of mockery, of the polite deflection she knew he'd perfected over years of turning down his family's gentle overtures.
She searched for the careful distance he maintained whenever faith came up in conversation, the way he'd redirect with a question or a dry observation, never dismissive, never unkind, but never letting it in either.
There was none of that.
Just his dark eyes, intent on hers, and a gravity in his expression that told her he understood exactly what she was asking and exactly what it meant to her, and he was saying yes anyway.
Olivio hadn't yet finished speaking when his wife was already on his lap, beaming at him with so much joy that the sight of it did something to his breathing he refused to acknowledge.
"You promise?"
"Yes."
A soft, shaken laugh, and then for the first time in their marriage, she was the one to kiss him first. Her mouth found his with a certainty that surprised them both, no hesitation, no waiting for permission, just Chelsea rising up on his lap and pressing her lips to his with the urgency of a woman who had just been given something she'd been too afraid to ask for and needed him to know, needed him to feel, what it meant to her.
And as her body melted against his, it was in this kiss that he knew he had not imagined what he heard.
I want you to go to Heaven.
Those were the words she said with her lips.
Because I love you.
And those were the words whispered by her heart.