John cast a fleeting smirk at the tabletop before his tone adopted a hardened edge. "You were still in the tender years of your youth, harboring a clandestine boyfriend? My God. I felt like an absolute deviant for harboring the desire to stake claim on you next to a lifeless body, but I nearly succumbed to that urge so that his spirit would know you were always mine. Were you cognizant of that?" She shook her head in response, her mouth slightly ajar in surprise.
"After I unearthed your romantic involvement with that pitiful excuse for a man, it was glaringly apparent to me that a certain degree of distance was necessary. You needed to live and learn, to mature, to savor life beyond the confines of Boston before it was time for you to assume your rightful place by my side. And there's no
