Fifty-Four
Sienna
My knees threaten to buckle as I stand, breath catching in my throat. Harper squeezes my arm—a silent offering of courage—before slipping out, leaving me alone with him.
Tall, broad, devastatingly familiar, but he’s not the same. Not immaculate. Not untouchable. His suit jacket is unbuttoned, his tie slightly askew, the usual sharpness in his presence is frayed. He looks like a man who hasn’t slept, hasn’t taken a proper breath in weeks.
When our eyes meet, I see it.
Fear.
Not the casual, calculated fear of a man making risky deals in boardrooms. This is deeper. This is the fear of standing in front of the one person who could break you or put you back together.
Something sharp twists in my chest. Around us, the office hums in the distance, but all I hear is my pulse hammering in my ears.
I open my mouth, desperate for words, but nothing comes.
“I meant every word,”
he finally says.
The letter. The podcast. The confession.
I cross my arms over my chest, grounding myself. “Took you long enough.”
His jaw tics, a muscle in his cheek flexing. “I know.”
He takes a careful step forward. “I should’ve told you back then. I should’ve said it before I left, but I was a coward.”
God.
I close my eyes for half a second, fighting the lump in my throat, the pull of emotions that threaten to drown me.
“You don’t get to do this,”
I say quietly. When I meet his gaze again, my voice is stronger. “You don’t get to show up, drop some grand declaration, and expect me to just—”
I gesture between us, my throat tight. “What? Forget everything? Forget how it felt when you walked away?”
Nathan’s breath stutters. “No. I don’t expect that.”
“Good,”
I snap. “Because I won’t.”
My voice shakes now, but I don’t stop. I let it pour out—the ache, the anger, the hope I tried to kill.
“Do you even know what it was like for me?”
My chest heaves, my nails digging into my arms. “You left me, Nathan. You left. And I told myself it was fine, that I knew what I was signing up for, that it was just one week. But then I had to go back to my life and pretend like I didn’t fall for you in the process.”
His face twists. “Sienna—”
“And now you’re here?”
I let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Why? Because you finally decided you were ready? Because you got bored? What changed?”
He steps forward, something desperate in his expression. “You. You changed everything.”
I shake my head, looking away. “I can’t do this.”
He reaches into his pocket. I hear the faint crinkle of paper before he unfolds the napkin contract.
The exact one from our flight. Creased, slightly worn, but intact. He smooths it out, his fingers skimming over the words like they mean something more than ink and paper.
My throat tightens. “You still have that?”
His gaze meets mine, unwavering. “Of course I do.”
His voice drops, thick with emotion as he reads, “Rule number one: No actual feelings.”
He scoffs, shaking his head. “Fucked that one up on day two.”
My chest constricts.
“Rule number two: No unnecessary PDA.”
His fingers tighten around the napkin. “We both know how that went. Rule number three: This deal ends after both events. I fucking hate that one most of all.”
The air in the room crackles with something heavy, something unspoken.
He looks at me, and everything else disappears.
“Rule number four: No falling in love.”
I can’t breathe.
“Yeah,”
he says roughly. “I broke that one too, and I’d do it again.”
The words slam into me, knocking all the air from my lungs.
I shake my head, tears burning behind my eyes. “Nathan—”
“I moved my company’s headquarters here,”
he says, voice hoarse. “Because for the first time in my life, I wanted to stay somewhere. I wanted a home, and I wanted it with you. I don’t want to keep moving, Sienna. I don’t want a life that doesn’t have you in it.”
His voice cracks slightly. “I don’t expect you to believe me right away. I know I fucked up. But I’m asking you to please let me prove it.”
I say his name again, but I’m unsure if he hears it.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you if I have to.”
He takes another step, closing the distance, his hands gentle as they cup my face. “I’ll screw up. I’ll probably piss you off every other day, but I won’t leave again. Not unless you tell me to.”
My resolve cracks. The walls I built start crumbling under the weight of his words, the weight of everything he’s laying bare.
I reach up—just an inch—and brush my fingers against his jaw.
His breath catches, his entire body locking up like he’s afraid to move, afraid I’ll pull away.
My chest feels too tight, my pulse erratic. The urge to run and the urge to stay wage war inside me, but then I feel it—the way his hands shake against my skin and how he looks at me like he’s already lost me.
That’s what does it.
Not the speech. Not the grand gesture.
It’s the look in his eyes. The wrecked, breathless don’t leave me again look.
My fingers slide from his jaw to his tie. I curl them around the fabric, tugging just enough to make him stumble closer.
“Sienna—”
I pull him down, crashing my mouth against his.
He groans against my mouth like he’s just been given back the thing he lost. His arms snap around me, holding me so tight I can hardly breathe. He kisses me like he’s starving, like this—us—was the thing he needed to breathe all along.
And for the first time in six weeks, I let myself believe him.