She would have been uncomfortable at the time, and probably would have pushed him away had she known them, but it was also about the same time she was realising that no other man could truly satisfy her anymore. She hadn’t been ready then to accept that anyone could love her, love her and not one of the various personas she put across, and she definitely hadn’t been willing to look too hard at her own feelings. She had thought herself incapable of love, but oh how wrong she had been.

“I think they gave up trying to keep me out eventually,” she said, smiling at him when he kissed her hand.

Back then she would have preferred a lie to the truth he offered now. “At the time I wouldn’t have accepted it,” she admitted, though he clearly knew that anyway. He knew her, and that was how they had eventually gotten to this point. No matter what he felt for her, no matter how early on, he had never pushed her, never asked more from her than she was willing to give. Had he done so they never would have made it, but he let her realise everything in her own time, gave her time to fall in love with him, and more time to accept the fact before ever hinting toward it himself.

“Do you still do that?” she asked with no agenda, just honestly curious. “Think about what you don’t have?”