“But as he spent more time with Livia and talked to her about what she was learning, he came to feel confident that she saw him only as her soulmate and never as a potential patient. She wanted to help him and just happened to have an above-average knowledge of how to do so.”

“He had known so much about her once -what she thought, how she felt, the reasons for her actions. And now he only knew that he loved her, and all the other knowledge seemed passing from him just as he needed it most.”

“It was as if she saw him in a whole new way, as if he had magically been transformed into a new person. Perhaps what she could really see, or wanted so very much to see, was how much he cared for her. Not that he wanted something from her, but that he wanted to see to it that she was happy, that she was taken care of, that that was what he truly wanted. And in that instant, it made her love him.”

“She saw him the first day on board, and then her heart sank into her shoes as she realized at last how much she wanted him. No matter what his past was, no matter what he had done. Which was not to say that she would ever let him know, but only that he moved her chemically more than anyone she had ever met, that all other men seemed pale beside him. ”

“She loves Vincent body and soul. He is her true love. She will never feel for me what she does for him. But I will never stop loving her. And I have to learn to live with that.”

“Livia nodded. Seeing him puttering around in her kitchen, turning on the familiar faucet, solidified her feeling of destiny. She knew, staring at his back, that he would not go hungry again. She would have him, warm and safe, with her every day. It was perfectly clear. She would need to talk with her father. It was time for her to be on her own.”