Chapter 4
Your choice.
Emma looked up.
“You kept this?”
Adrian nodded.
“Why?”
He signed slowly.
Because that night everyone thought you were the powerless person in the room.
Emma smiled faintly.
“I was.”
No.
He shook his head.
You were the only person who could understand everyone.
Emma’s throat tightened.
Adrian continued.
Frank thought you were poor, so he believed your life had a price.
Nolan thought I was deaf, so he believed my voice belonged to him.
He paused.
We were both wrong about ourselves because we had spent too long listening to people who benefited from us believing we were less.
Emma looked down at the paper.
The city lights blurred slightly.
“That’s annoyingly profound for a crime boss.”
Former crime boss.
“Right.”
She smiled.
“Corporate tyrant.”
Better.
Emma laughed.
Then Adrian stood.
He took the old paper from her hand.
For one terrifying second she thought he might produce a ring.
Instead he tore the page in half.
Emma blinked.
Then he tore it again.
“What are you doing?”
He dropped the pieces into her trash can.
That was the beginning.
Emma stared at him.
“And now?”
His hands moved carefully.
Now I ask something different.
Her heart began pounding.
Adrian did not kneel.
He did not produce jewelry.
He did not make promises about forever.
He simply stood in front of her with nothing between them.
No chief of staff.
No interpreter.
No notebook.
No debt.
No fear.
Stay for dinner?
Emma stared at him.
Then she started laughing so hard she had to lean against the desk.
Adrian frowned.
“What?” she managed.
He waited.
“After everything we’ve been through, that’s your move?”
He looked offended.
Good restaurant.
That made her laugh harder.
Eventually she caught her breath.
Then she looked at the man who had once sat at the head of a table where everybody feared his silence.
She thought of Nolan filling that silence with threats.
Frank filling her poverty with a price.
The world constantly trying to decide what people were worth before asking them.
Adrian waited.
He did not pressure her.
That was perhaps what she loved most.
He always waited for the answer.
Emma lifted her hands.
Yes.
His expression softened.
Then she added another sign.
But I’m choosing the restaurant.
Absolutely not.
“See? Corporate tyrant.”
Bad taste.
“I survived five years of diner coffee. My standards are excellent.”
He shook his head.
Emma grabbed her coat.
As they walked toward the elevator, Adrian reached for her hand.
He stopped before touching it.
The question was visible in his eyes.
Emma looked at his hand.
Then placed hers inside it.
Choice.
Always.
The elevator doors closed.
Outside, Chicago remained loud.
Trains rattled over steel tracks.
Car horns echoed between buildings.
People argued on sidewalks, laughed in bars, shouted across crowded intersections.
Adrian heard none of it.
For most of his life, other people had treated that silence as something they needed to fill for him.
Emma never did.
She had learned something far more important.
Silence was not permission to speak over someone.
Poverty was not permission to own someone.
Love was not permission to choose for someone.
And being needed was not the same as being loved.
An hour later, they sat across from each other in a tiny Italian restaurant where the tables were too close together and the waiter kept forgetting their water.
Emma ordered pasta.
Adrian complained about the lighting.
She accused him of being spoiled.
He accused her of choosing restaurants based entirely on bread.
Halfway through dinner, an elderly couple at the next table noticed them signing.
The woman smiled.
Her husband nudged her.
Then, slowly and awkwardly, the woman signed to Adrian.
Beautiful language.
Adrian looked surprised.
He signed back.
Yes.
The woman pointed toward Emma.
Your wife?
Emma nearly choked on her water.
Adrian looked at her.
A dangerous amusement appeared in his eyes.
Don’t you dare, she signed.
He turned back toward the woman.
Not yet.
Emma kicked him under the table.
He laughed silently.
And for the first time in her life, Emma understood why people said some moments could leave you speechless.
May you like
It was not because there were no words.
It was because occasionally, finally, the truth did not need any.
