Chapter 373
Chapter 373:
“I owe you the truth,” he countered. “And the truth is, I was a coward. I let Rose manipulate me because it was easier than being the man you needed.” He reached for her hand. His fingers felt cold against hers, his grip weak but insistent.
“Camille,” he said, her name barely a breath. “I need to ask you something. And you can say no. You’ve earned that right a thousand times over.” She waited, afraid of what would come next.
“Can you forgive me?” His voice broke on the last word. “Not for my sake. For yours. So you can be free of what I did.”
The question hung between them, heavy as stone. Camille looked at their joined hands. Once, they had worn matching rings, made promises they thought would last forever. Now, there was only skin against skin—fragile and temporary.
“I forgave you a long time ago,” she said, surprising herself with the truth of it.
“When I built my new life. When I stopped letting what happened define me.”
Stefan’s eyes widened slightly. “You did?”
Camille nodded, the realization spreading through her like warmth. “I had to. Holding onto that pain was like carrying a boulder uphill. I couldn’t climb with that weight.”
“I didn’t know,” he said softly.
“Neither did I,” she admitted. “Not until just now. Saying it out loud.”
Stefan closed his eyes briefly, his face relaxing as if a great tension had left him. When he looked at her again, there was something new in his gaze—no longer the desperate need for absolution, but something calmer. Acceptance, perhaps. “I’m sorry it took a bullet for me to become the man I should have been,” he said.
“Better late than never,” Camille replied, surprised to hear herself laugh—a small, fragile sound, but genuine.
Stefan’s lips curved upward. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh in… I can’t remember how long.”
“Me neither.”
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They sat in silence for a moment, the beeping monitors a gentle reminder of how close she’d come to never having this conversation.
“You’re happy now,” Stefan said. It wasn’t a question. “With Alexander.”
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “I am.”
“Good. He’s a better man than I was.”
“He’s different,” Camille corrected. “And so am I. We’re different people than we were three years ago.”
Stefan squeezed her hand, his touch gentle but sure. “You’re stronger now. I saw it in the boathouse. Rose couldn’t break you.”
The mention of her sister sent a chill through Camille. “She almost did, once.”
“But she didn’t. You survived. You built something new.”
Camille nodded, unable to deny it. The woman she had been when married to Stefan—the trusting, naive, desperate-for-approval woman—was gone. In her place stood someone forged in fire, tested and true.
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.
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