"You're everything." She pulled him down, kissed him with all the emotion flooding through her. "You're everything, and I've been so focused on the others that I didn't see it. Didn't fully see you."
The kiss was different. Not the sophisticated tenderness of Kade's. This was something deeper. Older. The recognition of a deeper bond that had existed before she even knew to look for it.
When they broke apart, Evander was trembling. "I’m almost twenty years your senior. An old man. I don't know how to be anything but what I've been. The one who protects you from the shadows."
"You’re older than me, yes, but that does not bother me. You will learn." Catalina held his gaze. "Learn to be seen. Learn to stand beside me instead of behind me. Learn to let me love you the way you've loved me."
