The intensity of her confession struck me, mingling with my own fears. "You don't get it, do you?" I whispered, pulling back slightly to look into her eyes. "You were never someone I could replace. You were… you are everything to me."
She bit her lip, emotion shimmering in her gaze, as if the weight of my words was finally sinking in. "But what about Alice?"
A shadow crossed my features. "Alice never held my heart, Rafa. She's a good person, but she's not you. My heart has always been with you, even when I tried to convince myself otherwise," I confessed, pouring all of my vulnerability into that moment.
Her expression softened, and I saw a flicker of understanding spark in her eyes. "Please give me one last chance to be with you. I'll love you twice as much as I did in the past."
"Are you sure?" I asked, my breath hitching. I needed her to be certain, to know the stakes involved. "If you step back into my world, I won't let you go again. If you try to leave, I would chain you up by my side."
She nodded, her gaze unwavering. "Did you remember our promise? That we will only love each other? I never once broke that."
With an overwhelming surge of emotion, I captured her lips with mine again, missing our moment over the years.
"I know, and neither did I," I murmured against her lips. "Did you know that I was the same as you? When you first started your career, I quietly supported you from a distance. I even ordered several companies to partner with your company, making sure you had the opportunities to shine."
Her eyes widened in surprise, the laughter that bubbled up between us breaking the earlier tension. "Really? How did I not know this?"
"We were both too stubborn to admit our feelings," I chuckled, the sound rich with the warmth of nostalgia. "It was foolish of us to think we could just move on without addressing what was truly in our hearts."
Indeed, love is a tangled mess.