“She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him -- didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.”

“He didn't go down to dinner at all that night, didn't eat, didn't drink, simply thought of his wife, trying to decide what to do with her. He'd wanted her to suffer, and she'd suffered. He'd wanted her to pay for her deceits, and she'd saved his life. He'd wanted to torment her with the knowledge that she would never see him again and had instead created his own private hell. He wanted her to come to him again, giving herself to him as she had that night before her attempted escape, and he wanted to hear words she would never speak. He'd even started lying to himself as he lay sleepless in his bed, reliving each moment of their last night together, telling himself it was real, that she'd meant every word. He was going mad.”

“‎Odd how a man who never smiled could make her feel things she didn't know existed. He held her heart in his hands. From the moment she saw him, some thread had linked them together.”

“She loved him, and her heart was breaking. If she had known how much it hurt to love someone, she never would have given away her heart. But it wasn't a question of giving as much as falling.”

“She didn't love him and he didn't love her; she was like an addiction, and what they were doing had a darkness to it, a weight.”

“Oh, she loved weddings and longed for the day she would have her own. The day when she would be kissed like that by a man who wouldn’t leave her, a man who would promise to love her, to make it his mission to worship and cherish her for the rest of his life.”