"I promise you, Victor," Alice said, holding his face in hers. "You are nothing like your father. I do not stay with you just because we are married. I have come to love you. The beautiful, scarred, and broken man you are. You are perfect, and I wish you hadn’t gone through all you did, but I am selfishly glad because it brought us together. I… I love you, Victor. All of you."
"You cannot mean that," he said, trying to move away from her.
"Oh but I do." She smiled, taking the initiative and kissing him to silence him when he looked like he wanted to interrupt. "There is no other man I would want to spend the rest of my life with."
When her confession was made, she took her hands off his face and was all at once uncomfortable as she awaited his reaction. She was prepared for him to perhaps confess his feelings also, but not for him to claim her lips in a slow, deep, passionate kiss that stole the very air in her lungs.
When he finally pulled away from her, it took her a while to regain her ability to breathe at a sedate pace, but even then, the bright smile on his face stunned her.
"What is it?" she asked, almost uncomfortable.
"I just never realized how much I loved you before now," he said, almost amused.
"Was everything you said to me a lie then?" she asked, faking a pout.
"Of course not." He looked so appalled she couldn’t help but laugh. "I just realized that I fall deeper in love with you with every part of you I come to know."
She gasped at the beautiful words, placing a hand on her chest.
"Do not say such things if you do not mean them," she warned him.
"Have you ever known me to jest?" he asked with a smile. "I love you, Alice."
"And I, you," she replied.
They kissed again this time, and there was no rush to their pace. It reminded her of the blueberry pies she loved when the fruits were in season—sweet and tart, and she couldn’t stop at one slice.
When they pulled away for air this time, he pulled her to lay across his chest.
"Does this mean when I wake up in the morning, you wouldn’t push me away? You won’t hold back with me anymore?"
His answer involved him rolling atop her, nuzzling her cheek with his nose.
"I don’t intend to hold back with you ever again."
And hold back, he didn’t, for as the night neared its end, she knew then what it meant to be the wife of a powerful man.
