Chapter 292

Hannah

It took some time to get Melody to bed that night, what with all the sugar and excitement of the overwhelming day. Noah and I had to take turns pacing back and forth across the nursery, bouncing her and cooing to her until she finally gave up and let her eyes flutter closed.

By the time she was finally fast asleep in her crib, wrapped up in her blanket, it was nearly midnight. But I wasn’t tired at all, and one glance at Noah told me that he wasn’t, either.

We lingered in the nursery doorway for a long moment, just watching our daughter sleep soundly.

One year. It was quite the accomplishment, considering everything that we had been through. Both Noah and I couldn’t bear to let the day end—we wanted to stay up just a little while longer, just to enjoy it.

Finally, we made our way back downstairs, where the party had long since been cleared away and the guests had gone home. The air still smelled faintly of cake and birthday candles, and a few rogue scraps of confetti and wrapping paper were scattered across the hardwood floors.

“Nightcap?” I asked with a tiny grin as we reached the living room, gesturing to the bar at the far end of the room.

He nodded, his gaze following me as I mixed something up behind the bar—just a couple of gin and tonics with lime slices—and filled two glasses. I handed him one, and we settled onto the couch, pulling the blanket over us as the fire crackled softly in the fireplace.

We picked out a movie to watch, settling on something funny and mindless. It played on the TV in the background, but neither of us were really paying it any mind. Instead, we sat close to one another beneath the blanket, quietly sipping our drinks and enjoying one another’s company.

For a while, we just sat in comfortable silence. Noah traced his fingers back and forth across my shoulder, and my head rested against his chest as we watched the orange flames dancing in the fireplace.

After a moment, he glanced down at me. “I saw your vision earlier. At the shrine. Saw it through our Mindlink.”

I nodded, a sudden lump forming in my throat at the reminder. “She looked so beautiful,” I murmured. “And so strong.”

Noah’s gaze softened. “I always thought she would be destined for something great, but seeing it that clearly… Now there’s no denying it.”

There was a pause as I considered his words, chewing on the inside of my cheek. Finally, I sat up and turned to him. “I don’t want her to feel pressured, just so we’re clear. I don’t want her to feel like she has to live up to that… vision we had.”

“I know.” He exhaled, a thoughtful look crossing his face for a few moments. “We both know what it’s like to have parents who wanted something else from us. Who had their own ideas of who we should be in life.”

Another silence settled between us then as we both thought back on our pasts. My father’s well-meaning but ultimately poorly planned decisions, Noah’s father’s cold expectations.

When we’d told Drake during our interview that we intended to make our daughter—and any other children we may have—the master of her own fate, we both meant it.

“Your father,” I whispered. “The way he treated you… it left marks, Noah. The schemes, the manipulation… he was always trying to shape you into something, something that only he understood.”

Noah’s jaw tightened, his gaze dropping to his glass. “To him, I was just a piece in his plan. A tool he could mold and use.” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand why he did what he did. Or how he could justify it. And I’ll be damned if I ever, ever, did the same thing to Melody.”

I reached out, my fingers brushing against his cheek. I tilted his face back to meet mine. “You don’t need to worry about that. You’re not your father. Melody will never suffer the same way you did.”

Noah took a deep breath, nodding. “You’re right.”

“And then there’s your father,” he mused after a beat of silence. “He thought he was protecting you, setting you up for a safe future by arranging our marriage, but… he never really stopped to think about what you were getting into. He never took the time to get to know the man he was making business deals with, and it hurt you in the end.”

Noah’s jaw tightened at that. “Maybe you were hurt the most out of all of us,” he finished. I shuddered a little, thinking back to my death.

The pain of that experience still haunted me every night. Some nights, though I didn’t tell anyone, not even Noah, I woke up in a cold sweat… thinking that I’d died again.

Noah, sensing my discomfort, touched my arm. “All I want,” he said quietly, “is for Melody to feel free. To have choices. She shouldn’t have to be anything other than who she wants to be. No decisions made for her, not unless she wants it. No arranged marriages.”

A warmth spread through me as his words sank in. “I’m glad we’re on the same page in that aspect.”

The fire continued to crackle softly in the silence that ensued. For a long moment, I just rested my head against his shoulder, inhaling his scent. I still savored it as often as I could; after all, I’d spent so long thinking that we’d never see each other again.

But after a while, a thought began to nag at me—speaking of Noah’s father. “Have you thought about seeing him?” I asked carefully, glancing up at him.

“My father?” Noah asked. When I nodded, he immediately took a big sip of his drink as if steeling himself just at the mention of the man. I remained silent. He hadn’t visited his father, Scott, or Zoe in prison. Not even once. And he talked about all of them as sparingly as possible.

He was quiet for a long time, his eyes distant. Finally he said, “I don’t know, Hannah. Part of me thinks it would help, if I visited him in prison. To get some closure, maybe. But then… I’m not sure I can look him in the eye.”

I placed a hand on his cheek, turning his face toward me yet again. “You don’t owe him anything. You don’t have to go. But if you feel like you need to talk to him, if it would help you in some way… then you know I’ll be here to support you in that.”

His eyes softened, his hand reaching up to cover mine. “How do you always know what to say?”

“Because I know you,” I whispered, my thumb brushing gently over his cheek. “And I love you.”

A small, grateful smile touched his lips at that. He leaned in, his lips finding mine. His kiss was gentle, the barest brush of his lips against mine. “I love you too, Hannah. My eternal moonlight.”

As he spoke, his hands slipped down to my waist, pulling me closer beneath the blanket. I set my half-finished drink aside and moved against him easily, wrapping my legs around him and settling into his lap, facing him.

Gently and tentatively, I looped my arms around his neck and breathed him in, grateful for his warmth. He kissed me again, and again, and again, each one deeper and slower and more intense than the last.

Then, slowly, he lowered me down onto the couch and pressed me between the solid frame of his body and the cushions. Together, we tangled up around one another beneath the blanket, a tangle of limbs and lips.

The heat of the fire warmed our skin that night, but our hearts warmed each other from the inside.