It was the opposite.

For six years I had been rushed — rushed into surgeries, rushed into signatures, rushed into a version of myself that suited someone else’s plans.

Speed had been a weapon used against me; every important thing in my marriage had happened faster than I could examine it.

So when Cormac gave me time, an ocean of it, no pressure and no deadline and no sense that his patience might run out, he was not being cautious.

He was giving me back the one thing Cassian had systematically stolen: the right to arrive at my own conclusions on my own schedule.

I fell in love with him partly for the man he was, and partly for the way he waited — the way he made it clear, every single day, that I could stay or go, that the door swung both directions, and that his feelings did not constitute a debt I was obligated to repay.