AndTom.
She wanted it all.
Her success. Her voice. Her glitter. Her power.
Her husband.
CHAPTER 60
Tom
The mason jarsnow globe sat on the corner of his drafting table, catching the thin strip of winter light that filtered through the blinds. Glitter drifted lazily, flakes of silver and soft gold swirling like snow in slow motion. Beside it, the picture frame he’d painted—lopsided roses and all—held the photo of Lauren from last Christmas. Her joy was so bright it almost glowed through the streaky paint.
He caught himself staring again.
At her.
Atthem.
At the handmade world he’d dismissed as childish. Now he just wanted to live there with her.
He could see it so clearly now. All the ways he’d failed her, all the ways she’d still opened herself to him.
She’d been so warm.
And he’d been so undeserving.
He thought of her, beneath him, arching. Her thighs bracketing his face. Her hands sliding into his hair.
The sounds she’d made.
Heat flushed through him. He closed his eyes, breathing until he could think again.
He dragged a hand through his hair, dragged his gaze away from her photo, and forced himself to look at the blueprints glowing on his monitor. The Kent extension plan sprawled across the screen.
He zoomed into the layout and frowned.
It wasn’t wrong, exactly.
It just wasn’t anything.
He rested his elbows on the desk, head in his hands.
Lauren would never design like this. She didn’t start from “What will people think?” or “What will the neighbors approve of?” or “What would Richard Barrett accept?” Lauren’s creativity started frominside.
What doIlove?
What makesmesmile?
What feels likeme?
Tom swallowed hard. The truth of it sat in his chest.
She wasn’t fearless—he understood that now. She felt the fear, and she created anyway. He wasn’t strong like her.
Even this—this small, steady commitment to trying, to learning her language, to changing—he was doing it because she’d shownhim how. Because she’d walked into the fire first. Because she’d set the example.
He was following her. He always should have been. He always would from now on.
