CHAPTER 14 Delia
Delia
I met Jake at the coffee shop I’d chosen—somewhere neutral, though maybe part of me needed the symmetry. Needed to close the circle properly.
He was already there when I arrived, sitting at a table by the window nursing an espresso that looked untouched. When he saw me, something in his face tried to rearrange itself into hope.
I sat across from him and watched that hope die.
“You’re ending this,” he said. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“Because of Axel.”
“Because of me.” I wrapped my hands around the coffee cup the waitress had brought without me ordering. Jake remembered how I took it. That should have meant something. It didn’t. “Because I’m finally figuring out what I actually want instead of what I thought I should want.”
“And what do you want?”
“Not this.” I gestured between us. “Not us trying again because you’re sorry and I’m scared of being alone.”
Jake’s jaw worked. “Is that really all we were? You being scared?”
“No. We were real. For some time.” I looked at him directly. “But I loved being important to you more than I loved you. And that’s not enough to build a life on.”
“So it is because of Axel.”
“It’s both. I finally understood the difference between wanting to feel important and being seen without expectations.”
“How long?” His voice had an edge now. Hurt bleeding through. “How long has this been happening?”
“It’s been building for weeks. But I only admitted it to myself a few days ago.”
“Weeks.” He laughed, bitter. “So while I was trying to fix what I destroyed, you were falling for someone else.”
“I wasn’t planning it, Jake. I wasn’t looking for it.”
“But you found it anyway. How convenient that your brother’s best friend was right there ready to catch you.”
The comment was meant to sting. It did, a little. “Axel isn’t convenient. He was patient.”
“Patient.” Jake repeated the word like it tasted wrong. “Is that what we’re calling it? Waiting in the wings while I made mistakes so he could swoop in?”
“You can interpret that however you wish.”
“It’s not fair to me, to us!” His voice rose enough that people at nearby tables looked over. He lowered it with visible effort. “We had five years together, Delia. Five years. And you’re moving on this fast?”
“You moved on before our wedding.”
Jake went pale. “I didn’t—”
“I know Jennifer lied. I know you believed her. But you still chose her version of events over trusting me.” I took a breath. “Maybe Axel was always supposed to be where I ended up. Maybe you were just the detour I needed to figure that out.”
The comment was cruel. I knew it was cruel even as I said it. But it was also true, and I was done protecting people from truths that hurt.
Jake stood. His espresso was still full. “I hope he makes you happy.”
“Thank you,” I said
“I mean it. I hope he never disappoints you the way I did. I hope he’s everything you think he is.” He grabbed his coat. “Goodbye, Delia.”
I watched him leave. He walked out of the coffee shop and all I felt was relief more than guilt. Relief that I’d finally made a choice.
That I was done being the girl who stayed because leaving was scary.
I paid for both coffees and left.
That evening, I stood outside Axel’s building trying to remember how to breathe.
His apartment was in Midtown. Glass and steel and the kind of building that had a doorman who looked at me like he was deciding whether to call security.
“I’m here to see Axel Irving,” I said.
“Is he expecting you?”
“No. But tell him it’s Delia.”
The doorman made a call. His eyebrows rose slightly at whatever Axel said. “He’ll be right down.”
“I can just go up—”
“He’s coming down.”
Two minutes later, the elevator doors opened. Axel stepped out looking surprised, cautious—and like he’d run down thirty flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator.
“Delia. Is everything okay?”
“I talked to Jake. It’s over. I’m done being scared of choosing you.”
Something in his expression changed. Went soft and intense at the same time. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.” I moved closer. The doorman was definitely watching but I didn’t care. “I realized a lot of things after you left.”
He kissed me right there in the lobby—witnesses, security cameras, the universe bearing witness. Soft. Sweet. Like he’d been waiting for permission and now that he had it he couldn’t stop.
“Come upstairs,” he said against my mouth.
“Okay.”
His apartment was on the thirtieth floor. The doors opened directly into his penthouse and I stepped out into a space that was so perfectly Axel it made me smile.
Modern furniture. Clean lines. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Everything organized. Nothing out of place.
“Wait,” I said when he reached for me. “Give me the tour first.”
He looked confused. “A tour?”
“Yes, a tour. I’ve always wondered what your apartment looks like. What your life looks like when nobody’s watching.”
“Delia—”
“Tour. Then you can kiss me again.”
He smiled at this, leading me through the space. Kitchen that looked like it belonged in a magazine. Living room with furniture that had names I couldn’t pronounce. A home office with bookshelves that made my fingers itch to explore.
“It’s very you,” I said.
“Is that an insult?”
“It’s an observation. Everything in its place. Controlled. Organized.” I moved to the bookshelves. “Can I snoop?”
“You’re asking permission to snoop?”
“I’m being polite about it.”
His mouth curved. “Snoop away.”
I did. Ran my fingers along book spines. Technology. Art history. Museum cataloging systems. A section on Swedish literature that made my chest hurt because he’d kept that connection to his mother.
Then I saw it.
A photograph on the mantle. The only personal thing in the entire apartment. A family of three—Axel maybe seven or eight years old, standing between two adults who were clearly his parents.
I moved closer. His mother had the same gray eyes. The same dark blond hair that looked like it wouldn’t behave no matter how much you tried.
“You look just like her,” I said softly.
“Everyone says I have my father’s features.”
“They’re wrong.” I studied the photo. “You have her eyes. Her mouth.” I looked at him. “Is this the only photo you have?”
“Yes.”
The single word carried weight. Years of loss compressed into three letters.
“She was beautiful,” I said. “No wonder you’re pretty.”
His face did something I’d never seen before. A hint of pink formed across his cheek. It was slight, but unmistakable.
I stared at him too excited to let this pass. “Did you just blush?”
“No.”
“You did! Axel Irving just blushed!”
“I don’t blush.”
“You’re doing it right now! I can see it!”
“You’re imagining things.”
“I am not imagining the pink in your cheeks.” I was delighted. Absolutely delighted. “Oh my god, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
He moved fast. One second I was laughing at him, the next his hands were on my waist and he was backing me against the wall beside the mantle.
“Call me pretty again,” he said—his voice lower now, dangerous.
“Why? What are you going to—”
He kissed me and every thought I’d ever had just vanished.
This wasn’t like the parking lot kiss. This was intent and pure molten heat. His hands tightened on my waist. Mine went to his hair. I made a sound that should have been embarrassing but he swallowed it and made one back that destroyed me completely.
“Bedroom,” I managed when we broke apart for air.
“Down the hall.”
We made it maybe three steps before he kissed me again. Made it another five before my jacket was on the floor. Made it to his room but barely, stumbling through the door in a tangle of limbs and desperate touches.
His bedroom was as meticulously organized as the rest of his apartment. Big bed with dark sheets. More windows. But I wasn’t looking at the view.
I was looking at him.
At the way he was looking at me like I was something precious and terrifying at the same time.
“Do you want this?” he asked.
“Yes, I want you.” I pulled him closer. “I’m here. I chose you. I’m sure.”
That broke something in him; his eyes darkened, and suddenly we were all urgent touches and whispered names.
He was careful even in his desperation. His hands trembled as they reached for me, pausing long enough to ask without words.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes to all of it.”
Clothes were forgotten, and soon there was nothing between us but closeness and want.
He took his time. Even when I could feel how much he wanted me, even when my own hands were impatient, he moved like he was learning me—every reaction, every breath, every place where emotion lived under my skin.
“You’re killing me,” I managed.
“Good.” He kissed my neck, my collarbone, lingering like he’d waited years for this. “I’m not rushing.”
A part of me wondered exactly how long he’d been waiting. “Axel—”
“Tell me what you want.”
“You. I want you.”
His eyes met mine—gray, intense, full of something that made my chest ache. “You have me. You’ve always had me.”
Then he was kissing me again, and thinking stopped. It was all feeling — his hands, his mouth, the warmth of him beside me, the way he whispered my name like it was something sacred.
Time blurred. We found each other in the dark, learning the shape of this new thing between us. Every touch felt like finally understanding something I’d been circling for weeks.
“Okay?” he asked at some point, voice rough.
“More than okay.” I touched his face, tracing the shape of it in the dark. “Don’t stop.”
And he didn’t.
This was Axel saying my name like he’d forgotten every other word, his hands trembling even as he tried to be steady, his eyes on my face like he needed to memorize it.
When everything crested, he held on to me, face buried against my neck, saying my name like it was the only thing he knew. It felt like falling and landing at the same time.
Afterward, we lay tangled together, breathless and quiet, my heart racing against his.
“That was—” I couldn’t finish.
“Yeah.”
I pressed my face against his chest. His heart was pounding so hard I could feel it. “I think I forgot what I was about to say.”