Witness [A First Contact Romance]-COMPLETE

51. Trust

Earth

2027

It was still dark out when Rory opened her eyes. Theo wasn't in the bed, but he'd left a note in his place. Jace still slept beside her.

"I'm in the study," she read. "Don't worry."

Hard not to worry. Rory felt much better, at least, than when she'd first fallen asleep. Jace had been right about a few hours of sleep helping her recover. She could have gotten up, but looking at Jace now while he slept, she desperately wanted to stay right here. He looked peaceful like this.

One of her favorite things back on Lumiea had been curling against him on the rare day they could sleep in. It would have felt soothing to do it now. But Rory wasn't sure of what to do about her two lives colliding and knew she needed to figure it out. It was better to keep her distance until then, except that felt ridiculous. She and Jace had a life together. A child. And she had rarely slept a night apart from Theo in the last seven years. Distance with either of them felt wrong.

Lying beside Jace and simply staring at him made the foot of spacing separating them feel like an impassable chasm. Did having both men in her life again actually mean losing them? It couldn't.

Rory looked at his chest to see that the paste had dried well. Should she have used a seal over the deeper wounds? It was better not to worry. Jace had been through worse, even though she hated him ever being hurt at all. Soon, he would heal. But she wanted to use the excuse to let her fingers glide along his chest and rediscover the feel she once knew so well.

Jace's eyes opened. He glanced at her. "You're awake..."

It figured that he probably had been waking up and checking on her often. "Yes. Now you can actually sleep."

He smiled softly. "Do you feel better?"

"I'm fine now. You look like you're hurting. Want medicine?"

"Maybe later. Don't move yet. Stay here..."

Her heart twisted.

An entire life separated them, one where she'd fallen in love with another man, and where she hadn't seen Jace in ten years. They'd changed. Neither were the people they had once been. Not even close. With all that between them, it should have been an inseparable mountain. Should. Instead their life together felt so close to her, so deeply a part of her, that she knew it had stayed with her always. It had changed with her, buried deep and waiting, like an evergreen that needed no warmth to thrive.

They looked into one another's eyes and no matter the cost of the truth, Rory could not deny the undeniable. She was meant for Jace's arms. He for hers. Rory loved him deeply, forever, as they'd always promised. But she felt the same about Theo too. The two men were different, different to her, different within her heart, but each so deeply woven into her soul that she would have to destroy herself to rip either out.