Chapter 27
The hotel room is too quiet.
Isla sits on the edge of the bed, her phone facedown beside her, the city humming far below the windows. New York has always made her feel powerful, anonymous, capable, surrounded by momentum. But today it feels distant, like she’s watching her life through glass.
She did the right thing.
She repeats it like a mantra.
She stood up to her mother. She ended the control. She walked away from a place that threatened to swallow her whole. She chose herself.
So why does it feel like she left something unfinished?
Her chest tightens, and she presses her palm there, breathing through it. Love isn’t supposed to feel like this, like something you abandon to survive.
All day, she has blocked the thought of Callum from her mind. It’s time to forget him, heal from him, and yet her heart is breaking, and tonight, you could add a huge dose of loneliness to that thought.
She misses him. And yet he chose the castle over her. Time to move on. Only her fragile organ is refusing to listen.
In the two days since she arrived in New York, she’s cleaned house, met with her new manager, and even spent some time in the studio she rented. But now, it’s evening, and she’s lonely.
She thinks about her father out on the road without her mother at his side. Was that one of the reasons he’d gotten into trouble and cheated on his wife? Being alone on the road?
A knock sounds at the door.
Isla freezes.
Her first thought is of her mother. Her second is worse.
Hope.
She stands slowly, heart pounding, and crosses the room. She tells herself not to expect anything. Not to read meaning into coincidence. Not to open the door looking for rescue.
She opens it anyway.
Callum stands in the hallway.
No jacket. No castle. No hesitation.
Just him.
For a heartbeat, neither of them speaks.
He looks different, rumpled, travel-worn, eyes bright with something that looks like fear and resolve tangled together. Not the man who hesitated. The man who moved.
Her breath leaves her in a rush.
“You came,” she says, the words barely audible.
“Yes,” Callum replies. “I did.”
The simplicity of it undoes her.
She steps back without thinking, letting him inside. The door clicks shut behind him, sealing them back into the quiet, but now it feels charged, alive.
“I didn’t know if you would,” Isla admits.
“I didn’t know if I deserved to,” he says honestly.
They stand there, the space between them heavy with everything they didn’t say the two nights before.
“I read your letter,” Callum continues. “About five times before I stopped shaking.”
Isla’s throat tightens. “I meant every word.”
“I know,” he says. “That’s why I’m here.”
She folds her arms, instinctive armor rising. “You didn’t come to convince me to go back.”
“No,” Callum says immediately. “I came to tell you I was wrong.”
The words land cleanly, without defensiveness.
Isla searches his face. “About what?”
“About staying,” he says. “About believing that standing still was loyalty. About letting fear masquerade as responsibility.”
Her heart stutters.
“I thought the castle was what made me solid,” Callum continues. “What kept me from becoming someone who left when things got hard.”
“And instead…” Isla prompts softly.
“And instead I almost became exactly that,” he finishes. “A man who explains absence instead of correcting it.”
Her eyes burn.
“I didn’t come here to ask you to come back,” he says. “I came to tell you I’m choosing you. No caveats. No conditions.”
She swallows. “What about the castle?”
His mouth tilts in a sad smile. “It’ll still be there. Stone doesn’t vanish when you turn your back on it.”
“And you?” she asks quietly.
“I choose you,” he says. “Not that big pile of rocks, but you. Your happiness. We may not always agree about your father, but you’re the one who matters, not him. Not the castle. Only you.”
The honesty breaks something open inside her.
“I was so afraid,” Isla admits. “Afraid that if I stayed, I’d disappear. That I’d start making myself smaller just to keep something beautiful.”
Callum steps closer, slow and deliberate. “I don’t want you smaller. I want you larger than life.”
“I know,” she whispers. “I just needed to know you wouldn’t need me to be smaller.”
He stops a breath away from her.
“I don’t want a woman who stays because it’s safer,” Callum says. “I want a woman who stays because she’s chosen, and chooses me back. I want a woman who loves me with her heart and soul, as I do her.”
Isla’s laugh is soft and broken. “You finally sound like someone worth risking myself for.”
He smiles, relief and affection threading together. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
She doesn’t answer with words.
She reaches for him instead, fingers curling into the front of his shirt, anchoring herself to something real. He exhales against her hair, arms wrapping around her like he’s been holding himself apart for far too long.
This time, she doesn’t feel like she’s disappearing.
She feels seen.
They pull back just enough to look at each other, foreheads touching.
“What happens now?” Isla asks.
Callum’s smile is gentle. “Now we figure it out together.”
She nods, emotion swelling in her chest. “No managers. No castles making decisions for us.”
“No,” he agrees. “Just us trusting one another. Choosing each other always. I love you, Isla, and can’t live without you.”
Isla closes her eyes, breathing him in. “I choose you, Callum. I love you, heart and soul.”
For the first time in her life, love hasn’t asked her to compromise herself.
“Please don’t ever leave me again like that,” Callum says softly against her hair.
“I won’t,” she promises. “We’ll find a way together.”
“Yes,” he says as his lips cover hers and she surrenders to him, knowing that she’s found a lasting love. One that won’t disappear.
For the first time in her life, love hasn’t asked her to compromise herself.
It’s asked her to trust.
And this time, she does.