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“What’s that?” she asked
“Light is stronger I used to think that the two of them were different sides of the same coin That with one, always ca…it helped me reason out what had happened when I was kid It helpeda certain way, I could control things And now I’ve realized two things, the first being that I can’t control everything And the second is that light casts out darkness When you shine it bright, it fills every corner, and it eradicates anything dark There is nowhere for it to hide That’s what you’ve done for ht on my soul, and now I’m filled with it With your love”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth “I love you so much”
“I love you, too, Paige I a I needed You are perfect in every way”
“Even when I get glitter on you?”
“Even then Maybe especially then Because I love that you colitter”
“And a baby?”
“Most especially a baby I want to be your husband,” he said, “forever And I also want to be Ana’s father Her real father I never let myself realize just how much this is true, but I have a wonderful example of what a father should be in Don Colson And I want to be that for Ana I want to guide her, support her and love her I’m afraid I’ll mess it up, but I want to try”
“And if she wants to be an artist slashdresser like her mother?”
“She’s welcome to it I’ll build her an art studio”
“What about if she wants to be a CEO like her father?”
“She could do that, too She can do anything”
“I think she can, too,” Paige said, happiness filling her, suffusing her
“And one of the h exah “I hope to show her what love looks like, every day By loving her as a father should love a daughter And I hope to show her the kind of love that should exist between a husband and wife, by loving heras we both shall live”
EPILOGUE
ANA started crawling the day the adoption was finalized
“She’s really e said
Dante watched Ana rock back and forth on her hands and knees before ht for the coffee table He scooped her up into his ar her from certain disaster “You have to watch your head, stellina,” he said