Chapter 26
The condo was too quiet.
I’d forgotten how silence sounded different here—hollow, almost polite, the way certain places learn to hold their breath.
Just the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional tick of the clock on the wall I’d bought because it looked “timeless.” It wasn’t.
Nothing in this space felt timeless anymore.
I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark, phone face-down on the nightstand like it might bite me if I looked at it again. The screen had lit up three more times since I’d crawled under the covers—Harper, Abigail, an unknown number I assumed was the reporter. I hadn’t answered any of them.
Instead I stared at the ceiling and tried to remember what it felt like to sleep alone.
I couldn’t.
Not really.
The sheets were cool against my skin, but my body still carried the memory of his heat—the way he’d held me like I might vanish if he loosened his grip, the slow circles he’d traced on my skin, the quiet promise in his voice when he said he’d sell the preserves if I asked.
He’d meant it.
That was the part that kept looping in my head, louder than the guilt, louder than the donor threats, louder than the word hypocrite scrolling through comment threads I’d forced myself to stop reading.
He would change pieces of his life for me.
Not all of it. Not who he was. But enough.
And I hated that the thought made my chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with want.
I rolled onto my side, pulled my knees up, tried to make myself small.
It didn’t help. The bed felt too big, the room too empty, the city outside too indifferent.
Charleston had always been mine—my streets, my rhythms, my carefully curated corners.
Now every corner felt like it belonged to someone else.
To him. To the version of me that had let him in.
My phone buzzed again.
I turned it over before I could stop myself.
Cassian.
Not a call. A text. One line.
You’re safe. Sleep, if you can.
No demand to come back. No guilt trip. No possessive edge.
Just that.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Then I typed back before the impulse could pass.
I’m not sleeping.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Do you want company?
My thumb hovered.
I thought of Eleanor’s email. Thomas Price’s threat. The reporter’s voicemail. The comments calling me a sellout, a fraud, a woman who’d traded principles for a rich man’s bed.
I thought of my mother in that hotel lobby, letting Daniel kiss her like she was finally allowing herself to be claimed.
I thought of the letter I’d sent to Alpha Mail all those weeks ago—the one that had started with exhaustion and ended with surrender.
I typed one word.
Yes.
I hit send before I could second-guess it.
Twenty-three minutes later, the doorbell rang.
I didn’t run to it. I walked. Slow. Deliberate. Like I was crossing a line I’d drawn myself and could still erase if I changed my mind.
When I opened the door, he was standing there in the hallway light—dark jacket, hair slightly damp from the mist that had started falling outside, eyes steady but shadowed.
He didn’t speak first.
I did.
“You didn’t ask if I was sure.”
“You would’ve told me if you weren’t.”
Simple. Certain.
I stepped back.
He stepped in.
The door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded final.
He didn’t reach for me right away. He took off his jacket, hung it on the hook by the door like he’d done it a hundred times. Then he looked around—slow, taking in the space the way he always did, cataloging exits, corners, details.
“It’s smaller than I pictured,” he said.
“It’s mine.”
He nodded once.
I crossed my arms. “I’m not ready to talk about tomorrow. Or the board. Or the story.”
“I know.”
“So, why are you here?”
He met my eyes. “Because you asked.”
The simplicity of it cracked something open in my chest.
I turned away, walked toward the living room, needing distance. He followed, footsteps quiet on the floor.
I stopped at the window, looked out at the harbor lights. They shimmered on the water like scattered coins—pretty, useless, impossible to hold.
“I deleted the reporter’s voicemail,” I said. “I haven’t answered Harper. I haven’t written the statement Eleanor wants.”
He came up behind me—not touching, just close enough that I could feel the warmth of him.
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“I know.” My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “But I feel like I’m running out of time.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then: “Time isn’t the problem.”
I turned. “Then what is?”
“You still think this is something you can fix by choosing the right words.”
I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” He stepped closer, close enough now that I had to tilt my head to meet his gaze. “This isn’t a press release. It’s not a donor meeting. It’s you. And me. And what happens when the world sees both of us standing in the same frame.”
My throat tightened. “They won’t like it.”
“They don’t have to.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have a board. You don’t have donors threatening to walk.”
“I have things I can lose,” he said quietly. “Just different ones.”
I searched his face. “Like what?”
He didn’t answer right away.
Then, softer: “You.”
One word.
It landed like a stone in deep water.
I looked away, toward the lights again. “I’m scared of what I’ll become if I stay.”
“And if you leave?”
I closed my eyes. “I’m scared of that, too.”
Silence stretched between us—thick, humid, full of everything we weren’t saying.
He reached out then, slow, giving me time to pull away.
I didn’t.
His fingers brushed my cheek, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“You don’t have to decide the whole future tonight,” he said. “Just tonight.”
I opened my eyes. “And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we face whatever comes.”
I swallowed. “Together?”
“If you want.”
I studied him—the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the scar along his jaw, the way he held himself like he was always ready for impact but never looking for it.
“I want,” I whispered.
He exhaled once, almost inaudible.
Then he kissed me.
Not like earlier—not desperate, not claiming. Slow. Careful. Like he was memorizing the shape of my mouth, the taste of my fear, the texture of my surrender.
I let him.
My hands found his chest, slid under his shirt, felt the warmth of his skin, the steady beat beneath.
He lifted me without breaking the kiss, carried me to the bedroom like I weighed nothing.
We didn’t speak again.
Clothes came off slowly this time—his shirt, my blouse, his jeans, my leggings. No rush. No urgency. Just quiet intention.
When he laid me down, he didn’t cover me immediately. He stayed above me, braced on his forearms, looking down like he was seeing me for the first time.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. Low. Rough. Honest.
Tears stung again—not from guilt this time, but from something softer, more dangerous.
He kissed them away.
Then he moved inside me—slow, deep, deliberate. Each thrust measured, like he was proving something with his body that words couldn’t carry.
I wrapped around him, legs, arms, heart.
We moved together in the dark, no words, just breath and skin and the quiet rhythm of two people choosing each other in the middle of a storm.
Afterward he held me against his chest, one hand in my hair, the other resting over my heart.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured.
“I know.”
Sleep came then—slow, heavy, inevitable.
I woke once in the night, his arm still around me, his breathing even.
For the first time in hours, the silence didn’t feel empty.
It felt like space.
Space to breathe.
Space to decide.
Space to fall.