Maximilian's hold around her waist tightened at her words, instinctive, almost as though he needed to anchor himself to her in that moment.
"Catherine…" he murmured, her name softer than she had ever heard it, threaded with something unguarded.
"I love you," she said again, and this time her voice gave way, the emotion behind it spilling out without restraint. It wasn't a careful confession, not something measured or composed. It rushed out of her, breaking through every wall she had built over the years, every hesitation she had clung to out of fear.
Her gaze lingered on the paintings, on the life he had preserved in strokes and shadows, on the silent devotion that had existed long before she found the courage to say those words aloud. And the more she looked, the more it overwhelmed her; how deeply he had loved her, how patiently, how relentlessly.
"I love you," she whispered again, softer now, as though the words themselves were something fragile and sacred.
