Chapter 3
TESSA POV
"I accept." The voice that answered was smooth and low, threaded with a huskiness that seemed to settle into the very walls of the hall.
"I will get engaged to her." He said it again, louder this time, loud enough that no one in that crowded room could pretend they hadn't heard.
For a moment, nobody moved. The silence that followed was so complete I could hear the faint clink of a glass somewhere behind me.
“Really?” I asked as I turned toward him slowly.
Malcolm sat still in his wheelchair, one hand resting casually on the armrest, his expression calm, almost too calm for a man who had just agreed to marry someone in front of an entire hall of witnesses. I had expected him to refuse. Even after walking toward him with my head high, even after asking him outright, there had still been a small, frightened part of me that believed he might say no. But he had accepted. Just like that.
I found myself staring at his face longer than I meant to. He was the most handsome man I had ever seen in either of my lives, sharp cheekbones cut clean in the candlelight, dark eyes calm beneath thick brows, a presence that made it difficult to look away. Too handsome for someone in his early thirties
Even seated in the wheelchair the whole hall had spent the evening whispering about, his radiance could not be concealed. He didn't look like a man who needed anyone's pity. He looked like someone who simply didn't care what anyone in that room thought of him.
I had seen Malcolm before, in my previous life, but standing this close to him now, he looked different. Maybe it was only that I was finally looking at him with different eyes. Back then, my heart had been so fixed on Soren that I had barely let myself see anyone else, especially not the quiet uncle everyone dismissed. I had been too busy chasing a man who never wanted me. A bitter feeling passed briefly through my chest. Not this time.
"Do you want me to take my word back?" His husky voice pulled me from my thoughts.
"Huh?" The sound left me before I could stop it, graceless and startled.
He leaned toward me and flicked my forehead lightly with one knuckle. "You heard me."
"No!" I yelped, rubbing the spot, heat rushing up my neck. A faint amusement flickered in his eyes, and I couldn't help staring at him another second longer. This man was not what I remembered. Or maybe I had simply never paid attention to him at all.
I turned back toward the crowd, chin lifting despite the warmth still climbing my cheeks. "Master, did you hear? He accepted."
Master Silas's expression remained complicated as he looked from me to Malcolm and back again, as though he still couldn't understand how everything had shifted so quickly. Finally he cleared his throat.
"Since he has accepted, then from now on, you two are betrothed." His words made the decision feel suddenly, irreversibly real. "Your engagement banquet will be held later."
His eyes lingered on me a beat too long. He wasn't convinced. Of course he wasn't. He likely believed I had chosen Malcolm only because Soren had rejected me, that in time I would regret it and crawl back to the man I'd once loved.
Before Master Silas could say anything more, Malcolm spoke.
"There's no need to wait." His voice cut through the hall again, calm and certain. "We can be engaged tonight." His hand moved to the inside pocket of his coat. "I have a ring with me. If she wants to get engaged tonight."
A ring. My heart skipped. He had one with him, already, tonight, as if he had known I would come to him before I knew it myself.
I had chosen him because I knew what kind of man he truly was, because I remembered the quiet way he had once helped me when no one else would. But knowing that was one thing. Standing here now, hearing him offer a ring in front of the entire hall, was another thing entirely.
Until this moment, my choice had felt like a decision, a way to change the future, to make sure I never walked that same burning road again. Now it was becoming something real. If I said yes, there would be no pretending this was only anger dressed up as defiance. There would be a ring. A promise. A name tied irrevocably to his.
I looked at him again. He was watching me, not forcing, not rushing, simply waiting, the way he had waited through every long second of my silence when I'd first asked him to accept me.
That small stillness touched something deep and tender inside me. In my previous life I had spent years trying to convince someone to want me. I begged. I had endured humiliation and called it devotion. But Malcolm wasn't asking me to prove anything to him. He had already accepted my choice. Now he was only giving me room to decide whether I truly meant it.
"Tessa," Master Silas said gently, "if you are willing, and certain you won't come to regret it, you may be engaged now, or we can wait until later."
The room fell silent again, every eye turning toward me. I could almost read the thoughts behind their stares. They expected me to hesitate, expected me to ask for time, hoping that hesitation would prove what they'd already decided the moment I pointed to Malcolm instead of Soren, that I was only playing some desperate game to win Soren's jealousy, that underneath it all I was still the same foolish girl who used to chase after a man who despised her.
I almost wanted to laugh. They still didn't understand me at all. They were waiting for me to turn back toward the man who had once told me, in front of everyone, that I wasn't worthy of him.
But I had already died once because of that man. I had already learned exactly what it cost to place someone else's love above my own life. I would not make that mistake again.
My eyes went back to Malcolm. He was still waiting, no pressure in his expression, no arrogance, nothing but patience. For the first time, I let myself imagine what it might mean to stand beside a man like him. A man I hadn't chosen out of desperation, but because I wanted an entirely different life than the one that had already killed me once.
My heart settled. I took a slow breath and turned to Master Silas.
"I want the engagement to happen now," I said, and my voice did not shake.
A ripple of shocked murmurs swept the hall, but I kept my eyes fixed only on Malcolm.
"Since I already chose Malcolm," I said, "there is no going back, and there is no regret.”