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Vaping mindlessly, barely aware of the rumble of traffic and always present noise from the street below, the knock on the door jolted Strike from his unpleasant musings. It was as though his heart had jumped to a sprint. There hadnt been noise on the landing, had there? He stared, disbelieving, from the edge of the bed he had collapsed onto hours ago - wallowing in the hollow feeling he'd had since Robin had left him on the stairs.
It couldnt be her.
Maybe he'd misheard - wanted to hear a knock so badly that his mind had taunted him with it. But a second knock came then, a little louder than the first. It couldnt be her. But...who else?
He strode to the door and pulled.
Robin Ellacott stood in front of him. And even in his sudden state of keyed up anxiety, he registered how good she looked, standing at the top of the stairs, hair slightly windswept from the rush of air the door had blown back at her, so forcefully had he opened it. She was still wearing the pink dress he'd thought so sexy the first time he'd seen it. He didnt think he was breathing properly.
His eyes performed the familiar snap to her left hand. But it was out of sight. Her arms were linked behind her back.
In the absence of confirmation from her hand, Strike raised his eyes to hers searching for some kind of clue - disgust or hate or...something else. Anything else. He couldnt read her.
"Im sorry," he heard himself say. The words seemed to echo in the stairwell.
"Because you're not going to let me come in?" She said lightly. Her face wasnt giving anything away, no puffy eyes to suggest she'd been crying, no post-engagement glow. He thought he must look rather pathetically dejected and made an effort to control his face. Was it a bad sign that she was so calm?
The possibilities of what it meant - her being here hours after he'd declared his love for her. A hundred scenarios were playing out in his head - all of them seemed to end with a slamming door and Robin's departure from the agency.
He stood back to let her in, eyes darting again to her left hand. But as she stepped past him, she let her arm fall to her side and blocked it from his view. He closed the door and turned to find she had only gone as far as the kitchen, still standing. He felt a kind of bubbling dread. Had she come to tell him that she was engaged - that she was leaving? That Murphy was waiting downstairs and that she and Strike couldnt work together anymore after what he'd said, that they couldn't even be friends.
Was everything he had feared most about his slow, life-changing, dawning of love for her coming true?
His thumping heart was making it hard to concentrate. The thought of taking it back, of telling her she had been right, that he had been terrified she'd leave and had said it only to prevent her marrying Murphy and leaving the agency, that he would never mention it again if she would stay, flitted across his mind and was dismissed. He couldnt lie now. He couldnt return to unacknowledged longing.
"Do you want to sit?" He asked in a cautious voice.
"I didnt say yes," she said and her tone was matter of fact. She was looking at him. And his eyes again snapped to find her left hand. She clasped them both in front of her as though in confirmation. Could she see the wave of relief in his face? Through his body? See how he had clenched his fist, knuckles white?
Would she believe it was because he loved her? Or would she think it was relief for the assurances this news provided for the continued operations of the agency?
"Robin..." he said and he struggled momentarily, trying to control his tone and his face, trying not to show how obviously thrilled he was by her words. He didnt know what he wanted most to say.
He settled for, "I'm sorry," again.
"What for?" She said, her face serious.
He spoke carefully, aware that he might be on the edge of a miracle that felt all the more momentous for how certain he had been it was beyond his grasp. "If you wanted to say yes because you love..him" the words tasted sour in his mouth, "but you didnt because I'm a dickhead who ruined your night, then im sorry."
He felt dizzy with the relief of hearing her words and with the knowledge that she was here, in his flat, decidedly not engaged, and not because Murphy hadn't asked yet but because she had turned him down.
"But if you didnt want to marry..him, then no I'm not sorry. But I know I'm still a dickhead."
She huffed out a breath, half amusement, half agreement. Then looked around the flat, spotting the whiskey and glass he had taken out and abandoned hours before.
"Have you had a lot of that?"
Slightly abashed to admit the next, but nevertheless determined to be frank and open with whatever she might ask him he said, "I've been doing a fair amount of drinking alone the past few months. Think it might be time I took a break from it...Wardle's idea."
Robin gave an upward nod of the head, her lips pursed slightly seeming not to want to comment. She looked a little agitated; as though in the keyed up state she sometimes exhibited when she had something to tell him about a case.
Strike stood on tenterhooks across from her, wondering what what was coming.
I want to be with you permanently. Marry me.
And then, with matter of fact forwardness, Robin's voice cut through the onslaught of recriminations and longings that had been whirling around Strike's head since darkness had fallen.
"You gave me a bracelet at Christmas full of symbols of jokes and moments only you and I would understand."
Whatever Strike had thought she might say, it was not this. It wasnt a question, more a statement and he wondered why she should bring the bracelet, of all things, up now.
The feelings he had hoped might be divulged on both sides after receiving her early morning Christmas Day text thanking him had, of course, not been realized. In fact, this was the first either had mentioned the gift since.
He nodded slowly.
"You were going to tell me you how you felt in the lakes district and then on sarc but we fell out before lakes and you didnt know why and then I brought up egg freezing on sarc and you didnt know what to do."
A beat. Strike met her focused gaze. And nodded again.
"You were going to buy me perfume at Christmas that one year but you didnt because it felt too intimate. And then you bought it for me anyway."
He nodded.
"All the years gifting flowers because you had to keep me at arm's length."
He didn't nod. But he knew she'd seen the acknowledgement in his face because she spoke again without waiting.
"And that green cavali dress because you thought I looked good in it and you wanted me to know I did."
"Better than good," he said unashamedly.
She didnt blush but continued to gaze at him, clear-eyed and serious. It was the look detecting brought out in her - the focused determination to find the answer that lay in a messy pile of words and photos and memories. The drive to understand that they both shared so fiercely. He loved her. He loved her. Christ he loved her.
"You almost kissed me outside the Ritz two years ago and when I panicked, you thought I was disgusted by you."
The look she had worn on her face in that moment came back to him easily. He swallowed. And nodded.
"You told me I was your best friend."
"You are." He said simply. I dont want to be your fucking friend. I'm in love with you. Everyone else can see it. Why can't you?
He knew what she was doing. Laying out the pieces; setting down the facts as she knew them to find what was missing, the key that would push this mess of almosts and missed opportunities into place in her mind, the thing that would make sense of it all.
"And if Barclay hadn't interrupted...that conversation might have ended differently."
She was waiting for confirmation this time. So he said slowly, "I wanted to tell you ...how important you were to me. How much I relied on you. How much better you made shit days and long road trips and...everything else in my life. But..." Honesty full stop, Strike thought. "I don't think I could have said it out loud then."
A long pause followed. He held her gaze still, his heart beating fast given his lack of movement or exertion. Robin looked thoughtful.
"You told me Charlotte knew you were in love with me."
He shouldn't, he knew now - had realized in the hours since she'd rushed out on him the second time - have ever used that letter to hint at his feelings. He had thought about it almost non-stop since Robin had hurled it back at him. Telling me Charlotte thought you were in love with me.What was I supposed to say to that? She had not been flattered or intrigued by the notion that Charlotte had supposedly known his feelings, was not impressed by his teasing of deeper emotions for her through the mouth of his dead fiance. Nevertheless, he thought there might be a way to push understanding now, to fix one of the miscalculations he had made.
"She knew. Not because I had ever said but because she had a good eye for that. She knew it before I knew myself. That you were...part of the reason I didnt get pulled back to her - when I had so many times before." Sixteen years of fucking pain. "Three years ago she told me she didnt think she'd ever been so envious in her life as she was of you."
A flicker of what he thought might be shock graced Robin's face at that and Strike felt a small rush of relief.
But her voice was still matter of fact when she next spoke. "You crashed my wedding because you wanted me back at the agency."
"At the agency." He agreed with yet another nod. "And...as a friend.. as a partner.. In my life." He added seriously because it was true but also because he really had nothing left to lose now.
"You hugged me on the steps outside the church and -" a brief pause and Strike’s stomach flipped over. "You almost told me to leave Matthew, to come back to London with you."
So she had known - the thought that had ran through his mind as he held her on those stairs - the mad instinct that had gripped him with her in his arms.
In the days following his return to London, before calling her parent's house, he had hoped the madness had gripped them both and, even years later, even after they had had other moments besides, the knowledge that it had caused the hope buried deep in Strike's gut to throb painfully. She didnt look away but he thought she looked uncertain for the first time.
He wanted to elaborate, but he couldnt find the words, so he gave another nod, hoping she could see in his eyes how much more he wanted her now even than he had then.
The suddeness of Robin's ascent to her feet nearly knocked her chair to the ground. She had walked back towards the door and turned to face him before Strike had time to react.
"You got drunk and took a woman home two days later."
It was like being punched in the gut. Her voice hadn't really risen but it was steelier now, a challenging undertone, and Strike felt the coldness in his extremities as though the temperature in the room had plummeted.
"I ..- how did you -?"
"She called you cormy-wormy." It was impossible to mistake the disgust in Robin's voice.
Strike's mind was reeling. Who -? And then he remembered... Coco. He had called Robin's parents house and had learned she had gone on her honeymoon - even after finding out what that arsehole had done. And he had felt -.
But there was something else niggling at his brain.
"You called me from your honeymoon." He said sharply. But Robin didnt answer.
"You jumped into bed with Madeline Coursen-Miles barely a week after you tried to kiss me outside the Ritz."
"I -," Strike fumbled, further destabilized by this, belatedly aware that he had no defense.
"And you pushed me away after. You would have regretted it if we had kissed."
A beat. The time seemed to stretch in front of them like glass, breakable if you moved wrong.
"I dont know." The truth - mostly. He thought it possible, likely even, that his instincts might have led him to erect barriers between himself and Robin once he'd sobered up, if the kiss had occurred. But he had spent the time since she had started dating Murphy thoroughly kicking himself for not having taken advantage of the opportunities he'd been given when it came to Robin, and a small part of him wanted to believe that if a kiss had happened then, it might have spurred him to less pigheadedness sooner.
The admission seemed to surprise her. Perhaps she had expected a clear 'yes.'
"You didnt want me to meet Ted or Joan or Lucy. But you could take Nina to meet Lucy cause she didn't matter to you. And I could meet Prudence because by then I was with someone else so if she hinted at something between us, it wouldn't force your hand."
This, too, showed a pattern he had not properly acknowledged to himself and he felt caught out to hear her say it so plainly. "Yes." He said, wishing he could mount a defense, to say that it was more complicated than this but thinking for the first time, maybe it wasn't.
"You split up with Lorelai cause she knew all you wanted was a shag and a hot shower."
"How the fuc-," Strike started, thoroughly astonished Robin knew and remembered that parting line. For Lorelai, of all his past girlfriends, to be brought up in this way was perhaps the most destabilizing. He had treated her decent enough, hadnt he?
"You slept with Bijou Watkins because she was there and easy and distracting."
Fuck. Strike hated what she was doing. Working through the facts as though 'they' - 'Cormoran and Robin,' were a case she was feeling her way through, lining up what fit and what didn't. And as she had done with their best moments, she was dissecting their worst, stacking evidence to contradict his theory of love.
It wasn't pleasant hearing his words about Bijou rephrased coming from her, hearing the distaste in her tone. A misguided exercise in distraction and instant gratification.
The self-directed fury he had felt on and off since declaring himself so chaotically hours before was rising again. Of course she would remember his past dalliances. How idiotic could he have been to think she should be flattered by his behavior towards other women as distraction for his feelings rather than offended by proxy.
You expect me to throw away a 2 year relationship so I can be the next woman you get bored with after a few months. No wonder she had been sure of ulterior motives when he'd said he was in love with her.
"Yes."
"And you lied when I asked about her because of the Candy story and Nina and what Valentine told me about you and Charlotte."
Strike felt her words again as a physical blow. All the hits he had taken the past few months - everything he had never wanted her to hear or know or believe because her opinion was what mattered most. And she had known it all along anyway. And had had to face it alone, with no explanation or context because he was a self-centered prick who thought he was clever enough to avoid uncomfortable conversations and could lie to the women in his life without consequence.
He closed his eyes briefly; ran a hand over his face. He was struggling to look at her. He didnt want to see anger or disappointment there.
He had thought, if he was given another chance, that she might need to hear more, to be shown he had meant what he'd said on the stairs. He had not expected her to come so armed.
"I thought I could fix things without you knowing how badly I'd bungled everything. After Candy - thinking you'd believed it was bad enough - and then knowing Valentine had been shootin his mouth off.." he let the sentence hang. But said, "I didn't want you to think of me like that when all I'd been trying to do for months was look better to you than fucking Murphy."
It wasnt disappointment or anger on her face, he realized, when the silence had stretched on and he had forced himself to meet her eyes. It looked close to anguish.
"You didnt love any of the women you've been with except Charlotte." Her words came out softer than any she'd spoken thus far.
Strike wanted to say he loved her again. Wanted to move the conversation away from his behaviour towards other women. Away from all the ways he had undoubtedly confused and, now he realized, hurt her. Because she had been observing him too, sorting out her own feelings after all their almosts. And he had let her in only to shut her back out - again and again. Let her believe something was there only for him to run away and leave her questioning what she'd seen. Every time we got so much as close to...you ran off screwing other women. Christ if Pat hadn't been right. He'd messed her around alright.
He didn't -couldn't say anything. Couldn't think of anything to say. So he shook his head. The icy feeling of before seemed to intensify. It could have been the dead of winter. She was mounting her argument to tell him that he couldn't possibly love her after all he had done. That this wasn't what love was.
Would she leave now? Quit the agency?
Even if she didn't, he knew things would forever be tainted between them. Friends though they might remain in name, the friendship that was so important to him, would be ruined. The ease and laughter they'd shared before he'd made a mess of this all would be gone.
Her next words came out more softly. "You told me not to make the same mistake twice. You meant marrying someone who didn't really want me doing this job. You were worried if I married Ryan, you'd lose me as a detective partner."
"I meant being with someone who isn't me, Robin," he said as matter of factly as he could make it sound though his tongue felt thick in his mouth and the blood was pounding in his ears again.
"When I first saw the houses Murphy sent you in that pub, I panicked."
Robin huffed out a breath of annoyance.
"But not cause of the business," said Strike, and he knew a surge of determination to make sure she understood.
"O'course I don't want you to be with someone who doesn't see how exceptional you are. But mostly," he paused for the briefest half second, "I don't want you to be with any other fucker at all."
When she didn't speak, didn't move, he decided to plunge himself further. Lay it all out, Strike thought, every thing you've been thinking for months and months.
"It's been....christ Robin I've fuckin hated seein you with him. Worse than seeing you with your arsehole ex-husband. I hated his stupid gym bag and pictures of him at your flat. I hated that he could get you information on a case I couldn't. And I hated feeling like your elderly grandfather limpin' on a walking stick in Sarc knowing if he'd been with you he'da been doing fuckin laps round it."
Her expression was inscrutable, though her colour was high, and Strike felt another pang of hope.
"He coulda been Prince fuckin Harry and I still woulda hated the idea of you with him....and not cause you might leave the agency. But cause it would close the door on there ever being a you and me."
The longest silence yet stretched between them. Strike tried to hold her gaze but it felt as though she was a too bright light - painful to look at, but drawing him in still. His heart thudding in his chest felt painful.
When he finally looked back to her, it was to see Robin's head bent down, her hands clasping the back of the chair she had nearly toppled, fingers twisting the worn out knobs on the sides.
"You never wanted a long term relationship," she said, inhaling a long breath and shaking her head as though ridding herself of a bad thought. "You want solitude and privacy. Companionship when it's available but not commitment."
"I want commitment," he said quickly. And it came out more aggressively than he'd intended. "If it's you, Robin." He was willing her to hear the honesty in his voice. The certainty. "If it's you, I want it."
She didn't respond, didn't offer any other statements. She was looking at him as though an evidence board with unknown secrets she was trying to discern.
How could he tell her she could ask him anything tonight and he would answer. How could he say he knew he had fucked up and that he did not deserve her. But that he wanted her all the same. Wanted so badly to make her happy. Believed they could make each other happy.
When Robin finally did move it was to pull the chair back from the table and, with a soft thud of elbows, she sat down and put her head in her hands.
Strike stood, his eyes watchful and weary. Wondering what she was thinking. Wondering if he should speak.
And only because he had gone so still in his fear and contemplation was he able to hear her soft, muttered, "bugger."
And, inexplicably, without meaning to Strike's face split into a wholly inappropriate grin.
He hadn't spoken or moved, but Robin seemed to sense the change in atmosphere and glanced up. The look of annoyance and disbelief she shot him made him sober instantly.
"I like when you say bugger," he rushed to explain sheepishly, hearing the words come out of his mouth and realizing too late he sounded like an idiot.
He had royally fucked things up and he was an inconsiderate prick...but she was here and she wasnt engaged and these words, of all so far said, spoken with frank, unguarded fondness had caused a flush on her cheeks.
Now - maybe - finally, he could set things to rights.
"Robin," he began, sitting down again and leaning forward to cover her hand where it lay on the table. He took it as a good sign she didnt pull it away. "I didnt want to fall in love with you. I enjoyed running the business with you too much, and I didnt want to fuck up what we had - you were the only thing that kept me sane during all the shit I-we've been through. So yeah I pushed you away and I kept things private and I lied and I messed around because that was safer and easier than risking getting too close to you when I knew from the beginning I was attracted to you. And then later with Lorelai or Bijou - well that was better than sitting alone thinking about you with your arsehole ex husband or Ryan fucking Murphy. I wasn't thinking about how that looked to you or made you feel because I'm an inconsiderate dickhead and I DID need time to realize what you really were to me. And I'm glad it took me awhile because now I know I mean it when I say I thought I wanted privacy and solitude and I spent a long fucking time convincing myself that was true. Because I had never met someone I wanted more than those things."
She didn't cry but he could see her eyes glistening. He wanted badly to kiss her, to make her feel how certain he was about her. But before he could act on it, she had stood up again and walked towards the door. He thought for one horrible, panicked moment that she was going to leave. But she just turned back to him and leaned against it.
"Ryan is a great guy."
Strike’s heart felt like it had dropped to the pit of his stomach. Past feeling overwhelming relief when she had told him she wasnt engaged, he had not thought about her relationship status with Murphy, inadvertently assuming if a proposal had been rejected, the relationship would have ended.
She was looking at her feet, her hands tucked behind her back, up against the door. "He's sweet and funny and handsome. He was understanding after Chapman and the...pregnancy. My mom loves him. He gets along with my brothers."
"You," she addressed Strike, "are a grumpy sod, you think too little about how your actions will impact other people, you keep things from me, and you have a bad track record with relationships."
Strike felt each of these as yet more blows to his battered ego. Robin couldn't say anything to him about his own actions that he hadn't already said to himself. But hearing her extolling all her boyfriend's virtues after listing all of Strike's shit choices over the past few years was infinitely worse than all the hours he had spent in self-recrimination.
She was still in detective mode, laying out the facts and information, lining everything up. Murphy was kinder and more patient and more understanding. He was loved by Robin's family. Strike was brash and inconsiderate, still carrying more weight than he should, out of shape, and 10 years older than Robin. Linda, Robin's mother, had come just short of verbalizing outright dislike of her daughter's detective partner; she would not think Strike a suitable replacement for Murphy.
"Fucks sake, Robin. I know I'm no-."
"I told Ryan I don't want kids, didn't even think I wanted to get married again. He said kids wasn't a deal breaker...but I don't believe him. I can't spend the rest of my life feeling pressured to change my mind or feeling guilty cause I'm not what someone else expects me to be."
"What did he expect you to be?" Strike asked cautiously; feeling, as he had so many times these past few months, as though his heart had been through a literal wringer. So they were broken up?
"Someone less interested in a body in a vault than in house hunting or freezing their eggs or Christmas with the family or foreign holidays. Someone who doesn't spend lunch with their soon to be in-laws researching leads, or Christmas pub outings googling dead potential witnesses." She half-laughed though she didnt sound even slightly amused. Her pitch had a kind of hysteria to it.
This wasnt a declaration of love but it was an admission of sorts - one he had craved for a long time.
He wanted to make his own admission- to tell her how often he had gone home to this attic flat wishing she was with him, wishing that they were talking about a case or discussing some new strategy, sharing in the best parts of the job together, ignoring expectations and holidays and other people's idea of what they should be to each other - discovering it themselves. He had not often been poetic and while he wanted to make the effort now, he was scared of making the wrong move.
"I'm not doing well," she said bluntly before he could speak. "I should have taken some time off after Chapman Farm but... I just wanted to work, I wanted things to be normal. These past few months have been...shit."
"Robin - I'm sorry." He ran another hand over his face and again felt the need to make as many amends as he could. "I'm sorry I've been such a bastard."
"It's not just you. I've been pushing myself to do things I didnt want. Just letting things happen to me. Going along with things I knew weren't right. But I kept trying to reason my way through it. I didn't know how to admit I didn't want certain things especially when what I've been trying to tell myself I don't want but maybe actually do want wasn't an option anyway and probably isn't even a good idea. And there always seemed to be something telling me that I was misjudging things or that what I wanted would be a mistake. And then the threats and the stalking made it so I couldn't think or move or breathe. And I just kept doing things I didnt want to do because I didnt know how not to do them without making everything worse."
She looked close to tears, the matter of fact tone and expression gone. Replaced by an overwrought air.
"Some experiences can force you up against things you thought you had a handle on," Strike said. "They can push you towards things that aren't right but you tell yourself to just keep moving that way, that you'll get your bearings at some point. Charlotte turning up at Selly Oak after my leg - proposing to her - staying with her - it's like an infection."
"Chapman farm is hardly the same as what happened to you,.....or Charlotte" Robin added.
"It's all fucked up, Robin," he insisted. "All of it. Not just Chapman but everything you've been through. No one would think less of you for acknowledging it. Me least of all," he hesitated for a moment. His desire to hide this part of him, to never unnecessarily reveal what he had shamefully done lost the fight against his determination to make sure Robin understood. No more holding back. Not when he was being given an opportunity the likes he had dreamed of, one he had messed up before. Don't make the same mistake twice.
"That terrorist attack nearly did me in. I was halfway to jumping into the fray like I was still a soldier before I realized where I was and what I was doing."
Robin's intake of breath made him look up to meet her eyes. She looked reasonably shocked. He shrugged.
"Some things fuck with you. And you just have to find your way through them as best you can. And when you realize you're on the wrong path, you get off it. And try something else."
He was thinking of his own path to this moment. The long years of disentangling himself from Charlotte and the slow realization of what Robin was to him.
"I did think I could just pull myself together if I tried hard enough," Robin admitted, not looking at him. "But things just kept piling on." Her eyes were teary again.
Strike wanted to reach for her, but he sensed that would seem opportunistic even if he thought she would welcome it. So he opted for a different show of comfort.
"You're one of the bravest, most capable people I know, Robin. And you're only going to keep getting better at this. I've never thought otherwise. Well - cept maybe when you get to a witness before me or get at info I should have spotted - then you're a bit of a show-off." He'd said it to make her laugh and was rewarded with a snorted exhale.
"My cousin Katie said to me once, 'it's like you're traveling in a different direction to the rest of us.' When I split with Matthew and didn't stay married and have kids. Cause I wanted something else. Suppose she would say the same again now."
"I like the direction you're traveling." Strike said without thinking and felt himself cringe internally. Christ what the fuck was wrong with him?
But Robin was staring at him with an incredulous look as though she couldn't quite believe all he was saying. "You might be the only one who does."
Strike's mind was racing; playing catch up with her earlier words. Was it ego to think she could be talking about wanting him? Trying to tell myself I don't want but - maybe actually do want. And there always seemed to be something else telling me that I was misjudging things or that what I wanted would be a mistake.
He wanted to ask outright but he was worried she wouldn't say if he was too direct. So he ventured slowly. "It's ok to want something different... I mean if you don't want kids or marriage or family holidays, that would be OK."
He took a step closer to her. "You have other options."
He sincerely hoped his expression wasn't too desperately hopeful. He was more worried now than ever before of scaring Robin towards a withdrawal or denial that would add barriers to one of the most honest conversations they'd had in years. They had both proven themselves prone to panicked retreat.
But she said softly after a moment's pause, not looking at him, "options are good." And Strike released the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.
"Robin," he started. But Robin forestalled him with a shake of her head.
"I need time to get myself sorted, ok?"
He nodded automatically.
"Prudence recommended a therapist and I've got an appointment for next week. And I might need a vacation," she added with another hysterical exhale. "And I'm going to drop in on some self defense classes - see if there are any new tips on how to ward off sadistic, cowardly men." Her half hearted joke fell flat but before Strike could comment, she had raised her hand to forestall him again and said. "Do not be yet another man in my life telling me I can't do the job I love because I'm a woman or because I'm weak or fragile. Don't tell me to be safe or to make changes or tell me I'm more vulnerable than someone else. I know these things. And I'm going to do something about it. I'm not going to ignore it. But if you want to be - if you're going to be - ,
And it was like an electric shock how quickly Strike's senses seemed to fire up waiting to hear how she would end the sentence. "With me?" "My boyfriend?", "My husband?" He thought for the thousandth time of his poorly judged and ill-timed proposal.
But Robin didnt say any of those things......"-you can't be like the others. I dont want someone telling me not to work all the time or telling me how I'm supposed to feel or what's good for me. I decide that."
"Ok,' he said automatically, ready to agree to almost anything. It was taking effort not to chastise her for not being more honest with him about how she was doing. But that, he realized, would be an astounding feat of hypocrisy after all that had been said tonight. So he took a tentative step towards her and, when she simply looked up at him, took another and reached for her hand. She let him take it.
"I wont lose you, Robin." Not I can't- though he judged that the more accurate sentiment. "You are too important to me. But if we - ...." he cleared his throat, embarrassed to find his voice thick with emotion. "If you let me -" Christ, he was hoping. His heart was full of a fire he hardly recognized, blazing for this woman standing in front of him, telling him what she wanted in a man, and he knew for sure now, and the idea was like no other ego boost he'd ever known, that it could really be him.
"I want to be the man you need," he said finally and realized ruefully his eyes were stinging.
"I'm going to get myself sorted," she said again, "and then, maybe," she hesitated and Strike could swear the air seemed to sweeten. "Maybe - we can try that talking thing."
As she peered up at him, he could see a faintly disbelieving, incredulous look in the pinch of her eyebrows but her lips had curled into a small smile and Cormoran Strike, hopelessly in love for only the second time in his life, at the age of 42, felt an unreserved flood of giddy anticipation course through him. There's no pride in having what you never worked for.
"I'd like that," he said thickly, gripping her hand tighter.