Page 95 of Love Under Snowfall

“Francesca, I cannot promise you that life will be perfect. Or that we wouldn’t fight. Or that my mind will ever change regarding marriage. But what I can promise you is that from hereon out, I swear I will do nothing but try to be a better version of the man you once knew.”

Silence.

Absolute. Agonizing silence.

Until finally . . .

“How long did that little speech take you to prepare?” Her eyes were as flat as her expression. “A few days or the last half hour of the drive over?”

“Iwasa litigator before I became a professor,” he said as he chuckled and shrugged. “Old habits of grandstanding die hard.”

“It’s scripted,” she huffed, finally allowing emotion to trickle into her response. “I don’t want some bullshit, carefully constructed speech that sounds like it came from AI software. It’s not real. It’s manufactured. You spend so much of your time meticulously organizing your thoughts that they never contain what’s most important.”

“And what’s that?”

“You! Benji. Don’t you get exhausted being this haughty, emotionless, never-swears robot? Can’t you just for once let loose and show the real you?” Frustration vibrated through her body, causing her to shiver in a way that begged Benajmin to hold her.

“I can try.” He shrugged.

“Then do it again.”

“What?”

“Rewind. Make your declaration, and this time,” she pleaded, “don’t hold back.”

He dragged in a breath and looked beyond Francesca to the sunlight glittering off the packed snow. The last time he’d been here with her, he’d felt the most terrifying fear of his life. He’d acted then without thought or concern for how he might sound or be perceived, and nothing bad had come of it. In fact, he ended up making a connection with her, one he’d never anticipatedcould happen. She was asking for the unfiltered version of him again.

Was that the key to successful relationships?

Being vulnerable?

Allowing oneself to be seen as exactly who they are and no less?

The notion was terrifying, but as he looked into Francesca’s flickering amber eyes, so full of hope and caution, he knew.

“Francesca, I . . .” Words caught in his throat just as tears pricked the corners of his eyes. “Fuck, I don’t think I know how to do this.”

“Then don’t. Think, I mean. Just talk.”

“I’ve spent every day since my parents’ divorce erecting this shield. I was determined to never end up like my mother. Anything that could be considered weak went out the window. Emotions. Slacking on anything. Any kind of vulnerability.

“In all those years, Johnny had been the only one to pry anything out of me, and that’s only because he allowed me to see him first. I was there with him when he got the call about your father’s cancer diagnosis.”

Francesca’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. Benjamin desperately wanted to wrap her in his arms and hold tight, but he had to get this off his chest.

“I’d never seen a man break down like he had. He sobbed and sobbed, and at first, I had no clue what to do about it. Until suddenly, some long-buried instinct jumped up to the surface and told me to hug him. I sat there, holding my friend—mybrother—while he cried in a way that I’d never done. Was never brave enough to allow myself to do.

“Johnny was the first emotional connection I had since I was twelve years old, and I clung to him. But when he moved back home and I stayed in Seattle where my life was just starting to takeoff . . . I don’t know . . . it’s like the fire he sparked in me faded. Like it became folklore of a time that existed long ago. I know that makes no sense.”

Francesca shrugged and dashed away a tear as it slipped over her bottom lashes. “It makes some sense.”

Benjamin smiled weakly and continued. “And then you sauntered into my lecture hall and turned my world upside down. Francesca, you made my world explode with emotions and disorder and vibrancy. You live in a way that is so unapologetically authentic and I hate that I tried to snuff that brightness out. I am so sorry for how I treated you, not only as a professor, but as a lover. I was callous and malicious and I am so fucking sorry. I don’t deserve your forgiveness—”

“But you have it anyway,” she said simply.

“What?”

“I forgive you.”

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