“I think you want to read this,” he finally said, flicking his head up to look at her before returning to the note.

Her eyes squeezed shut, full of anxiety and fear. “I can’t. You can read it to me if you want, but I’m not touching that.”

“Are… Alex, are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“If that’s what you want.”

Paul took a deep breath and cleared his throat. And when he spoke again, his voice had a mellifluous, delicate tone she had never heard him use, like he was reading poetry:

“My darling Alex,

“I hope that you’ll forgive me for the lateness of this letter—in truth, it should have arrived over ten years ago. Even the letter I brought on the boat never made it to you: I was nervous, and then we touched, and then we fought, and then I felt so stung by you that I withheld it in anger. I even convinced myself, the night I finally had you as I dreamed of for so many years, that we could never truly be together. The fear of your rejection was the only force stronger than my love. But then I remembered the extraordinary bravery you showed in writing me that letter years ago, and I thought, I can’t live with a version of myself who doesn’t have the same courage.

“To the Alex who wrote that letter to me—the letter I never acknowledged, the letter I ran from—I am more deeply sorry than you will ever know. There was never a moment I didn’t share your feelings, I was only blind enough to believe I was alone in them. So by the time you spoke, I was with another person for whom I did feel care and loyalty. I thought I was being honorable by staying with her, but I was also terrified. As you might remember, her father was and still is a very powerful man. At the time, he could have made or broken my future, and I’ve grown enough to admit that he is part of the reason I didn’t immediately run to you the way I wanted. This is incredible cowardice, but I was a very young man under enormous pressure to succeed and provide, and I put that before you. By the time I realized the extent of my mistake, you were already in Greece and had rightfully closed your heart to me.