Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Melissa
By Monday afternoon, the unease has settled into my bones.
It isn’t panic. It isn’t dread. It’s something quieter and more persistent. A low hum beneath my thoughts that I can’t shake, no matter how busy I keep myself.
Sunday wasn’t bad.
That’s the problem.
If it had been bad, if Colton had shut down completely, snapped at me, or gone cold, I would know what to do with that. I’ve lived through grief. I understand sharp edges. Pain that announces itself is easier to hold than uncertainty that lingers politely.
Sunday was gentle. It was peaceful.
And yet I keep replaying the moment his jaw tightened. The way his voice sharpened slightly before he smoothed it back into something calm. The way he didn’t answer Aubrey’s calls but also didn’t push it away.
I understand why. I really do.
But understanding doesn’t erase the fear that this is where he stalls or where things stop moving forward because forward requires confronting something he’s spent years outrunning.
I don’t want him to rush, but I also don’t want to be standing still forever.
By the time my shift ends, I’m exhausted in that deep, quiet way that has nothing to do with patient care. I change out of my scrubs slowly, my movements absent-minded, replaying conversations that never quite happened.
I’m tying my hair back when my phone buzzes in my locker.
Colton: Can you come over tonight?
No explanation or an indicator of anything. Just the quiet ask.
Me: Okay.
The reply comes immediately.
Colton: Thank you.
That alone tells me this isn’t about convenience. My nerves start to become alert as I wonder if this is all too much for him.
The doorman greets me by name again, and I smile politely, but my mind is elsewhere. When the private elevator doors slide shut, I exhale slowly, settling into the quiet.
Whatever tonight is, I don’t want to meet it guarded.
I open into his penthouse, where the lights are on this time. The city still glows beyond the windows, sharp and alive, stretching endlessly in every direction.
He’s standing at the kitchen island when I step in, hands braced on the countertop, like he’s been there a while. Not pacing. Not distracted.
Waiting.
“Hey,” he says softly.
“Hey.”
The space between us feels tight.
“I’m glad you came,” he says.
“I am too.”
He gestures toward the dining table. “Can you sit for a minute?”
The request isn’t controlling. It’s careful. My stomach flips anyway.
I sit.
He walks over slowly and places a thick envelope in front of me. Then another. And another.
I stare at them, my breath catching before my brain fully registers what I’m seeing.
Plane tickets. Hotel confirmations. A printed itinerary.
My hands hover above the table.
“Colton …” I whisper.
“Italy,” he says quietly. “Tuscany.”
I look up at him, stunned.
“I booked it today,” he continues. “Everything’s refundable. This isn’t pressure but I needed to make it real.”
My chest feels too tight for air.
“And before you say anything,” he adds quickly, “this isn’t me avoiding what we talked about yesterday.”
I study his face and see the tension in his shoulders, the seriousness in his eyes.
“This is me choosing something instead of running from everything.”
I swallow.
“I owe you an apology,” he says. “For how I reacted on Sunday. It caught me off guard. Not what you asked, but how much it mattered.”
I nod slowly, my fingers brushing the edge of the papers.
“I wasn’t angry at you,” he continues. “I was scared of what you were right about.”
The honesty in that hits hard.
“I know I need to talk to my parents,” he says. “I know that’s a step I’ve been avoiding for years. I’m not pretending it’ll be easy.”
He meets my eyes.
“But I am promising you I’ll do it. After we get back.”
Something in my chest loosens with trust beginning to rebuild its footing.
“I’m not asking you to wait forever,” he adds. “I’m asking you to walk with me while I figure out how.”
I don’t speak right away. I just breathe. I stare down at the tickets for a long moment, like if I look long enough, they’ll turn into something less real.
Italy.
A word that belongs in someone else’s life. Someone with fewer responsibilities. Someone who didn’t spend her early twenties learning the sound grief made when it moved into a room and never left.
My fingers skim the edge of the itinerary. Tuscany. Town names I can barely pronounce. Winery reservations. A hotel with a view. His careful, quiet attention to detail lives in every line item.
I look up at him again.
He’s watching me like he’s waiting for me to tell him he overstepped. Like he’s bracing for me to push back.
And maybe I should.
A part of me wants to insist on splitting it because that’s what a good, responsible person would do. A part of me wants to make sure I don’t become someone who accepts extravagant gestures just because they feel good.
But then there’s another truth underneath all of this. He isn’t doing this to impress me. He’s doing it because he wants to give something, but he also needs something in return, which is loss of control for him. He needs me.
“I’m … shocked,” I admit softly.
His jaw is set in a hard, tight line, as if he’s preparing to defend himself.
“Not in a bad way,” I add quickly. “Just … Italy is … huge.”
“I know,” he says, voice steady. “That’s kind of the point.”
I swallow.
“I don’t want you to think I’m trying to buy anything,” he says. “Or skip steps.”
“I don’t,” I say honestly. “I just—”
“You’re thinking about the money,” he finishes for me.
I nod. His expression softens, like he understands exactly where my head is.
“I’ve had all of this for years,” he says quietly. “And no one to share it with. No one I wanted to share it with.”
My chest tightens.
“Let me do this,” he says. “Please. Not because you owe me anything. Because I want to.”
His voice isn’t sharp. It isn’t possessive.
It’s almost … vulnerable.
And that makes my throat burn.
Before I can answer, he turns away from the table and walks toward the kitchen island. He reaches into a cabinet above the wine fridge, like he’s been thinking about this part too. Like he’s been waiting.
When he turns back, he’s holding a bottle.
At first, I don’t register why my heartbeat spikes.
Then the label catches the light … and I know.
My breath leaves me.
“No,” I whisper.
He sets it gently on the table between us, like it’s fragile.
“The auction,” he says. “The night of the event.”
My eyes lift to his, disbelief written all over me.
“You bought it?” I ask, voice too thin. “Because … because I’d looked at it?”
“I watched you,” he says simply.
My chest tightens again, but this time, it’s something else. Something warm and overwhelming.
“I didn’t mean it in a creepy way,” he adds, a faint edge of self-consciousness in his tone. “I just … noticed. You tried to pretend you didn’t care, but you kept glancing back at it like you were fighting yourself.”
I blink, tears rising too fast.
“I didn’t think anyone saw,” I whisper.
“I did,” he says, steady. “And I wanted you to have it.”
My hands hover over the bottle, but I don’t touch it yet.
“It’s rare,” I manage. “This is—Colton, this is expensive.”
He nods once. “I know.”
I laugh weakly through the sudden tightness in my throat. “Why would you do that?”
His gaze drops to the bottle for a moment, then returns to me.
“From the beginning, there was something deeper I felt for you. I knew it but was too afraid to admit it. But I could feel you in that moment. I could feel how much you wanted this.”
He pauses briefly, like he isn’t sure he should say the next part.
“But now it reminds me of us.”
I freeze.
“Not the money,” he says quickly, as if he knows where my mind might go. “The idea of it. The time of this aged wine. The patience. Something that has to sit and become what it’s meant to become.”
My eyes sting.
“It’s ridiculous—I know,” he adds. “Wine metaphors.”
“It’s not ridiculous,” I whisper.
His voice softens. “I’m not healed, Melissa.”
The way he says my name makes me swallow hard.
“I’m not going to pretend I am,” he continues. “I don’t want to sell you some version of myself that looks good on paper and collapses in real life.”
My hands curl into the edge of the table.
“But I also don’t want to keep living like I did,” he says. “Where everything important stays locked behind a door because it’s safer that way.”
He exhales slowly, eyes fixed on mine.
“And I know this,” he says, voice lower now. “I love you.”
The world shifts. Like everything in the room has gone quiet, except for the sound of my heartbeat.
“I think I’ve been in love with you for a while,” he continues. “Longer than I wanted to admit. Maybe longer than I even knew how to recognize.”
My throat closes. I can’t speak. I only stare.
He looks almost … raw. Like the words cost him something, but he’s saying them anyway.
“I didn’t plan it,” he says. “And I didn’t want it at first.”
A small, humorless smile flickers at the corner of his mouth.
“But you stayed,” he continues. “You didn’t demand. You didn’t pressure.”
Tears spill over. He doesn’t move to wipe them away. He doesn’t rush to fix it.
He watches me with an aching kind of patience.
“I saw you in that room with Frank,” he says quietly. “Day after day. Showing up. Carrying things you didn’t have to carry. And you did it with softness.”
I press a hand to my chest, like it might keep me from coming apart.
“And then you held me,” he adds, voice catching. “When I finally let go. You held me like I wasn’t too much.”
My breath shudders.
“I love you,” he repeats, like he needs the words to be solid in the air between us. “And I don’t know how to do this perfectly. But I’m tired of living my life like love is something that only ends in loss.”
I shake my head, tears falling freely now.
“I’m …” My voice breaks. I try again. “I’m shocked you noticed the wine.”
He lets out a quiet breath that sounds almost like relief. “I notice a lot when it comes to you.”
I laugh again, broken and disbelieving. “That’s … terrifying.”
He smiles faintly. “Yeah, it is.”
I wipe at my cheeks, frustrated by how quickly I’m unraveling.
“I love you too,” I whisper.
His face changes instantly, as if something in him releases. A loosening in his shoulders, a softening around his eyes.
“I do,” I say again, stronger. “I love you.”
He takes a step closer, then stops, like he’s giving me space to take it back.
I don’t.
I stand so quickly that the chair scrapes softly against the floor and cross the small distance between us. My hands find his face without thinking, cupping his cheeks the way I did once before when he was falling apart.
His eyes close briefly at the touch.
“You don’t have to heal overnight,” I whisper. “You don’t have to be perfect.”
He opens his eyes, gaze locked on mine.
“But I need honesty,” I add. “I can give you time. I can be patient. But I need you to tell me when you’re struggling instead of disappearing.”
His throat moves as he swallows.
“I can do that,” he says quietly. “I want to.”
My breath catches.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Then okay.”
He doesn’t kiss me right away. That’s what I notice first.
Colton stands there in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him, close enough that his breath brushes my cheek, but he doesn’t rush the moment.
His hands come up slowly, settling at my waist.
“I don’t want to do this halfway,” he says quietly.
My body sags with relief.
He pulls me into his arms then, holding me tightly. For a long moment, neither of us moves.
We don’t need to.
When he finally pulls back, he cups my face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the last of my tears. His gaze searches mine one more time, like he’s asking without words.
I nod.
This time, when he kisses me, it’s slow and sure and full of everything we’ve already survived. No urgency. No doubt. Just warmth and intention and the quiet promise of showing up.
When we break apart, he rests his forehead against mine again, smiling faintly.
“Come here,” he says, guiding me back to the table.
He picks up the wine bottle, turning it so the label faces me.
“I know it’s old,” he says. “And rare. And probably not meant for moments like this.”
I laugh softly. “What kind of moment is it meant for?”
He considers that, then shrugs. “A meaningful one.”
My chest aches in the best way.
He sets the bottle down beside the tickets. The two objects sit side by side, symbols of time, patience, and choice.
“I don’t know exactly what our future looks like,” he says. “But I know I don’t want to face it without you.”
I reach for his hand, lacing my fingers through his.
“I’m not afraid of taking this slow,” I tell him. “I’m afraid of standing still.”
His grip tenses.
“I won’t,” he promises. “Not anymore.”
I believe him. Not because he’s perfect. Not because everything is suddenly resolved. But because he’s standing here, telling me the truth, even when it scares him.
I lean into him again, resting my head against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.
For so long, love felt like something done to me— a battle I survived, a loss I endured.
But standing here now, with Colton’s arms around me and his truth laid bare between us, I finally see it clearly.
Everything changed the moment he stopped hiding.
The moment he confessed.
And in that confession—of grief, of fear, of love—we found each other.