He knew it would come to this. However much he'd hoped otherwise, he's sitting beside a woman for whom love has always seemed like the most dangerous of prey. There was no world in which she'd be so moved by his affections that she forgot her own fears.

That doesn't change the twinge of disappointment he feels, of course. It's difficult to push away that awful sense of I knew it, I knew better and I did it anyway, or quiet the little voice that can offer dozens of reasons Vex might look at him and regret the choices she'll make in the future.

(The truth is, she deserves the world, and that inevitably means that the truth is, she could do far better than him. Her insistence that he's all she wants is a miracle he can't expect to hold up in all times and places.)

(He's very glad he isn't sober right now. That seems like the only thing that would make this conversation worse.)

"I don't expect anything from you." That seems paramount, assuring her that she's no more tied down than she was two minutes ago. He gives her hand a little squeeze, then lets go. "Things are different here, and you've found...others. You have my word that I won't interfere with your life here."