Chapter 52
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
PENELOPE
My drive back home was quiet. No sobs. No spiraling. Just the low hum of the tires on the road and the weight of everything I needed to say pressing against my ribs.
I parked along the curb outside the apartment building and killed the engine. For a long moment, I just sat there, staring up at the place I’d called home for the past almost-month.
Holly’s certainty that Declan would be here had filled me with hope, and I clung to it like a lifeline as I climbed out of the car and made my way inside. The stairs had never felt so daunting, each step a countdown toward something I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to face.
But I’d spent my whole life running from hard things. Shrinking myself. Making myself small and easy and forgettable, so that when people inevitably left, it wouldn’t hurt as much.
And I was tired. So very, very tired.
I wanted to have the kind of life I wrote books about. Wanted to give myself over to the kind of man Declan had proven to be. Wanted to experience the kind of connection we’d shared.
Not just for a little while but for the rest of my life.
And to do that, I needed to follow Holly’s advice and allow my faith—in him, in myself, in us—to be bigger than my fear.
The apartment was dim and quiet when I stepped inside. Declan’s boots were by the door, his keys were on the table, and his jacket hung over the back of the dining chair. All the signs of a man who was still here. One who hadn’t packed a bag or walked out or disappeared while I was gone.
I set my keys down softly, slipped out of my shoes, and moved through the apartment on unsteady legs. The hallway stretched out before me, Declan’s door still shut like it had been when I’d left. And the fragile hope I’d carried home from Holly’s kitchen crumpled at the sight of it.
On autopilot, I drifted down the hall, my gaze locked on his door like it might tell me something if I looked at it hard enough. Was he sleeping? Stewing? Lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling the way I would be in ten minutes?
I had no idea, but I desperately wanted to know.
It was only as I got farther down the hallway that I noticed the unmistakable golden glow of my fairy lights spilling out from my partially open door.
Except I never turned them on during the day and certainly hadn’t before I’d left in a hurry.
The part of me that had always been scared to wish insisted it was Darcy’s handiwork. That he’d somehow found the remote and pushed the right button to illuminate them.
But there was another part of me—a tiny part that hadn’t been given enough space to bloom—whispering what else it could be.
Who else it could be.
Hesitantly, I reached for the door with shaking fingers and pushed it open, my breath held as my room came into view.
And there, lying in the middle of my beautiful, girlie bed, with a book in one hand and Darcy curled into his side, was Declan.
He reclined back against the pillows, his legs outstretched, one arm bent behind his head, the other holding a copy of The House of Sovereign Sin, and I could hardly breathe. Could hardly do anything but take a stuttering step inside.
As soon as I did, his gaze found mine. And there it was—that feeling that settled over me that I’d never been able to explain before.
The way his presence lit me up from the inside while simultaneously calming every storm I weathered.
Like my body finally understood something my brain hadn’t been able to grasp until now—that being fully alive and completely at peace weren’t opposites.
They were just what it felt like to be loved by him.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t even move. He just watched me with those pale blue eyes that knew too much and gave away too little. His expression was guarded in a way it hadn’t been for longer than I’d realized, and that thought made my chest crack right down the middle.
Because I was the one who’d made him put that guard back up. Who’d made him feel like he’d had to.
“You’re here.” The words tumbled out of me—fragile and trembling and soaked in relief so fierce it almost hurt.
“Of course I’m here.” His voice was low but sure. Steady. “Where else would I be?”
God, this man. He owned me completely, body, heart, and soul. And I’d almost thrown it all away because I’d allowed history to taint what we shared. To taint the man I knew he was.
Before I could open my mouth and tell him just that—to say how sorry I was, that I knew I’d been making a mistake as soon as the words had left my lips, that I wasn’t sure he could ever forgive me but hoped he could find it in himself to try—he set the book on the nightstand.
And then, without fanfare, without conditions, he extended his arm toward me, palm up, fingers open.
A silent invitation.
An involuntary breath burst out of me—half cry and half laugh but wholly and completely relieved.
I crossed the room in three strides—Darcy startling at the commotion and leaping off the bed—and collapsed into Declan. I buried my face in his chest and fisted my fingers in his shirt like I could anchor myself to him through sheer force of will alone.
Without hesitation, Declan tugged me straight onto the bed, settled me on top of him, and wrapped me in his arms. His hold was tight. Solid. Unwavering in a way I probably didn’t deserve but was going to soak up anyway.
He pressed his lips to the top of my head and breathed me in. And for a few long seconds, that was all there was—just his heartbeat beneath my ear playing my favorite lullaby and his arms holding me together after I’d torn us apart.
I couldn’t hope to hold in the tears, though I wasn’t sure how I even had any left at this point. But they came unbidden, soaking the front of Declan’s shirt in no time.
And through it all, his grip on me never wavered, his chest rising and falling in calm, even breaths.
“You’re okay,” he murmured into my hair. “We’re okay.”
I’d only managed to say two words to him—hadn’t even uttered the apology he deserved—and still, he was certain of me. Of us. And that only made my tears flow harder. Not from sadness but from the staggering, overwhelming reality that I’d given this man every reason to walk away.
And he’d walked into my bedroom instead.
When I was finally all cried out and my breathing had steadied, I pulled back just enough to see his face. His jaw was still tight, and his eyes were still guarded. He might’ve been here with me, but I could feel the distance between us. The wall I’d forced him to rebuild.
And I knew I had to be the one to tear it down. Brick by brick, if that was what it took.
“I’m so sorry, Declan.” My voice might’ve wavered, but my gaze never did. “I was wrong. I knew it even while the words were coming out. Some part of me knew.”
He stared at me, his gaze darting between my eyes, his jaw ticking once. “Then why’d you say it?”
There was no softness in the question, no mercy. Just the blunt, direct demand of a man who needed the truth more than he needed comfort.
And I needed to be the woman who gave him that, even if it meant opening myself up like I’d never done before.
“Because I was terrified,” I admitted. “And when I’m terrified, I don’t think. I just—I always go to the worst place. A place where people I trust use the things I’ve given them to hurt me.”
“Is that who you think I am? Someone who’d use your shit against you?”
“No,” I said without hesitation. “No, Declan. That’s what I’m trying to say. It was never about you and always about me. My history and my baggage that I haul around everywhere, whether I want to or not.”
“And what made you think I’d share your secret with the world when you asked me not to?”
I swallowed hard and gave a soft shrug. “Because it happened before.”
Declan raised his brows in surprise, and I steeled myself for what came next. I’d never told anyone this—not Holly, not the girls, not a single other soul. But if I was asking him to love me, he deserved to know all of me—messy pieces included.
“When I was a sophomore in college, my boyfriend found my writing. My first real attempt at it anyway. Before Eden, before any of this. And he didn’t just mock it.
” My throat constricted, my chest tightening at the memory of the whispers and the stares and the laughter all directed at me.
“He shared it with everyone. He thought it was funny. He humiliated me, and he laughed while he did it.”
Declan’s body tensed beneath mine, everything in him going taut—like every ounce of his restraint had suddenly been redirected toward the single-minded goal of not hunting down a man whose name he didn’t even know.
“He made me feel like the thing I loved most about myself was something to be ashamed of.” I forced myself to meet his eyes again. “I couldn’t write for years after that.”
His jaw was granite now, the muscle ticking in a way I recognized—the barely leashed fury of a man who wanted to put his fist through something. Probably my ex’s face.
But even through that, Declan’s touch stayed gentle, his hand cupping my nape, thumb stroking up and down the column of my neck. “So when you found out someone knew about Eden, your mind went straight back there.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded. “You’re the only person I’ve ever told. So my brain not so helpfully filled in the details without getting all the facts.”
He ran his gaze over my face, studying me in a way that made me feel naked, and understanding lit his eyes. “And your brain skipped to the part where I let you down. Because at least that’s something you know how to survive.”
His words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest, and for a second, I couldn’t breathe. Not because they were cruel but because they were true. Painfully, impossibly true. In a way I’d never been able to articulate before, even to myself.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Because at least that ending is familiar.”
“And how does it end?”
“Alone.” My voice cracked on the single word. “It always ends alone.”
“It doesn’t have to.” He held my gaze, steady and unflinching. “But I don’t want to go through this shit again.”
The hope that had been slowly rebuilding in my chest wavered, teetering on a razor’s edge between what he was offering and what he was asking for in return. Not because I didn’t think he deserved it, but because I wasn’t so sure I could give it to him.
“What if I can’t promise it won’t happen again? What if my brain goes there and I—”
“Then you talk to me, rebel. And we figure it out. Together.” He gripped me tighter, tugging my face closer to his. “Neither of us is allowed to go it alone anymore. I know that’s scary. Believe me, I fucking know. But we’re either in it together or not at all. And not at all isn’t an option.”
It wasn’t a small thing he was asking for. It was the opposite of everything I’d ever taught myself—every survival instinct I’d honed over eighteen years of being left and overlooked and made to feel like loving me was an inconvenience.
He was asking me to stay open when every nerve in my body had been trained to shut down. To reach for him instead of retreating. To choose him—choose us—even when it was hard. Especially when it was hard.
It was terrifying, but I knew he was just as scared…would have just as hard a time with this as I would.
And if he could be that brave, so could I.
“Together,” I whispered with a small nod. “I’m in. All the way. Even when I’m scared.”
His exhale was shaky—just barely, just enough that I felt it against my lips—and he slid his hand from my neck into my hair, his fingers threading through the strands and gripping tight. Not pulling. Just holding on. “About goddamn time, rebel.”
When he tugged my face to his and pressed his lips against mine, the kiss didn’t taste like forgiveness. It tasted like a fresh start. Like the first page of something neither of us had been brave enough to write alone.