Chapter 84
Savannah inhaled slowly, willing her heart to settle. But it was impossible—not with him standing this close, not with the gravity of his presence pressing into every inch of her skin, not with the weight of his words still hanging in the air like a challenge she wasn’t sure she could refuse.
She had spent the past year convincing herself she had made the right choice.
That leaving had been necessary. That she and Chase had been doomed from the start, that some loves weren’t built to last, that what they had had been nothing more than a fleeting, reckless, too-intense storm that had always been destined to burn out.
But now?
Now she was looking into the eyes of the man she had never stopped loving—eyes that had haunted her in dreams she refused to talk about, eyes that she had spent a year pretending didn’t still hold a part of her.
And he was looking right back. No anger. No bitterness. Just– warmth.
And that?
That was so much worse than she had been prepared for.
Chase watched her carefully, the teasing edge that had laced his words all night fading, shifting into something deeper, something softer. Something dangerous.
"You really thought I wouldn’t want to see you?" His voice was quieter now, the hum of the bar fading into nothing but static around them.
Savannah swallowed. "I didn’t know what to think."
Chase tilted his head, eyes scanning hers, seeing too much—always seeing too much. "Yeah, you did."
She hated that he still saw through her so easily. She exhaled shakily, dropping her gaze to the drink Gus had placed in front of her, tracing the condensation on the glass with her fingertip, grounding herself in the coolness of it.
"I guess I thought… maybe it would be easier. If you had moved on. If you didn’t care."
Silence stretched between them, thick and crackling.
And then—
"Sav," he said, gently, like he was speaking directly to the deepest, most hidden, most fragile part of her. Like he was touching her without ever lifting a hand. "I tried."
Her breath caught. She froze.
He tried.
Slowly, hesitantly, she lifted her gaze—and suddenly, the Chase standing in front of her wasn’t the confident, easygoing man who had spent the night making The Hollow his kingdom.
No.
This was just Chase.
The man who had memorized her coffee order down to the extra pump of vanilla.
The man who had stayed up with her on the dock until sunrise, talking about everything and nothing, about futures and fears and the kind of quiet hopes neither of them had ever spoken to anyone else.
The man who had let her go. Even though she was pretty damn sure it had broken him to do it.
The weight of everything—the regret, the loss, the sheer aching missing of him—slammed into her all at once, stealing the air from her lungs.
Her fingers tightened around her glass, knuckles turning white. "Chase—"
But he just shook his head, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips. "I’m not trying to make this hard on you, Savy. I just—I want you to know that you didn’t imagine it."
Her throat tightened. "Imagine what?"
His gaze held hers, unwavering. "That I loved you."
Her breath stopped completely.
A sharp, dizzying kind of panic clawed at her chest, because he wasn’t supposed to say that.
He wasn’t supposed to just put it out there like that—like it wasn’t something fragile and breakable, like it wasn’t something she had spent a year trying to bury beneath a thousand what-ifs and almosts and mistakes.
She hadn’t realized she was gripping the bar like a lifeline until Mallory reached out under the counter, squeezing her knee—silent, supportive, grounding. The world around them was still moving. People were laughing, music was playing, drinks were being poured.
But they—Savannah and Chase—were in their own space. A world where nothing existed but this moment.
Savannah’s voice was barely a whisper. "Loved?"
A heartbeat.
A flicker of something in Chase’s gaze—something raw, something vulnerable, something that made her feel like the ground beneath her wasn’t quite solid anymore.
He studied her, slow and deliberate, as if searching for something—as if waiting to see if she could handle the truth before he gave it to her.
And then—softly, honestly, devastatingly—
His lips quirked just slightly, but his eyes? They didn’t waver.
"Still."
Savannah’s chest tightened painfully, her pulse roaring in her ears. Because he wasn’t playing games.
This wasn’t flirtation. This wasn’t Chase Montgomery trying to get a rise out of her. This was him. Standing in front of her. Telling her the truth.
No hesitation. No expectations. No regrets. Just honesty. Just Chase.
And for the first time in a year—
Savannah wasn’t running.
She was standing still.
And maybe—just maybe—
she was finally ready to listen.