Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city blazes in sharp daylight. Sunlight bounces off glass towers, but I barely register the scenery. The brilliance blurs together, smearing across the glass like a watercolor left out in the rain. I’ve stopped seeing the view. Stopped feeling anything but the restless churn inside me.
My phone is clenched in one hand, screen still lit with the glow of the location-sharing app. I hate that I’ve been staring at it all day like some obsessed asshole. I hate how badly I’ve needed the reassurance that she’s safe. More than that, I hate that I’ve reduced myself to watching a blinking dot to know if she’s coming back to me.
This morning, she was at the bakery.
For a few hours, my heartrate slowed and my brain quieted. I told myself she was where she needed to be. Back in the rhythm of her own life. Surrounded by the women who always have her back.
But then the dot moved.
To Zane’s address.
And just like that, my world tilted on its axis. My hand was already on my keys, my body halfway to the door before my brain caught up. The urge to storm over there and rip her away from him nearly swallowed me whole.
Zane fucking Holloway doesn’t deserve her.
Or Nora.
He never did and he never will.
As much as every instinct in me screams to fight for her, this isn’t a battle I can win with brute force.
Not with Callie.
She’s not some problem I can fix or a prize to be claimed. She’s a woman who’s had to be strong for too damn long. Who’s been let down, disappointed, and dismissed more times than I probably even know.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned since she and Nora came into my life, it’s that the only way this works is if she chooses me on her own.
Not because I begged or showed up with a list of reasons why she should.
But because she feels it and she wants this as much as I do.
So I wait.
Even if it kills me.
Which it just might.
I’ve replayed last night over again on an endless, painful loop. The way she climbed on top of me like she needed me just as badly as I’ve always needed her. The way her eyes stayed locked on mine, filled with everything we haven’t said out loud.
And then she was gone.
No note or explanation.
Just a hollow space where her warmth had been.
The memory of her in my bed still clings to me like smoke. The feel of her skin, the way she moaned my name, the trust in every sigh and arch of her body.
It all felt so damn real.
Although maybe not real enough.
I drag a hand through my hair and turn back toward the window, trying to breathe through the ache inside me, when I hear the arrival of the elevator. The sound slices through the silence like a gunshot, freezing me in place.
A second later, the doors glide open and Callie steps out. Her hair is pulled into a loose ponytail, and her cheeks are pink from the cold.
She looks tired.
Beautiful.
So achingly familiar, it knocks the air from me.
I want to wrap my arms around her and never let go.
Instead, I remain rooted in place. If this is the moment she’s come to say goodbye, I’ll need every shred of control I have left just to stand here and take it.
She meets my eyes from across the distance. There’s hesitation in hers. But also something steadier. A quiet kind of resolve I haven’t seen before.
“Where’s Nora?” I ask.
“With my parents. I needed to talk to you. Alone.”
My pulse stutters.
Well, fuck.
That can’t be good.
The need to be closer wins out, and I take a cautious step in her direction. “Are you okay?”
She nods just once. “I am now.”
Those three words nearly bring me to my knees.
But still, I don’t know where this is going. I don’t know if she’s here to stay or to say goodbye. And that uncertainty guts me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Adrenaline rushes through my veins. I don’t need her to explain the question. I already know what she means.
I take another step. “I never wanted you to feel like you owed me anything. If you chose me, it needed to be because your heart wouldn’t let you do anything else and the world feels quieter when we’re together. Because being with me feels as natural as breathing.”
Unable to help myself, I close the remaining distance between us. “I wanted it to be because you love me as much as I love you,” I say quietly.
And now I’m standing right in front of her.
When I look into her eyes, I see it.
Everything I’ve been hoping for.
Everything I’ve been afraid to believe in.
“I do love you,” she confesses.
I blink, almost afraid I imagined it. “You do?”