That necklace.
He’dmadeit.
Her mind still couldn’t get over that part. Tom, sitting somewhere with pliers and wire, trying to make something with his own hands.
Lauren walked into the kitchen without turning on the light. The room was dim except for the street glow filtering through the curtains. She set the bead on the counter and leaned against the edge, arms folded tight.
He’d said he wanted to make one that wasgood enough for her.
But she didn’t need perfect. She never had.
She’d just neededhim. The man who wasperfectfor her. The man who’d said “I’m sorry.” The man who’d looked at her with tears and fury and truth.
She pressed her palms flat on the counter, grounding herself.
The man who’d once called her craftscringeand now wore his own clumsy creation under his shirt.
Lauren swallowed hard.
She picked up the bead again and held it.
Her heart hurt. But the ache didn’t feel like loss.
It felt like change.
CHAPTER 46
Tom
The commute was onlyfifteen minutes.
Every morning, he left Lauren’s parents’ place. Left a house bursting with mismatched furniture and homemade art. Then he’d park outside the office his father built—concrete and glass and control—and pretend he still belonged there.
He didn’t.
The construction plans looked the same. The employees sounded the same. His father’s voice still carried down the hall, calm and cold.
But everything felt different.
He couldn’t stop seeing color now.
Everywhere.
It was in the orange rust of the steel beams, in the paint splatter on a worker’s glove, in the red of a safety vest. Was this how Lauren viewed the world? He used to think that made her frivolous. He had been blind.
Worse. He’d willfully blinded himself.
He’d spent years muting everything he designed until his plans matched his father’s definition of “good taste.”
Tasteful. Polished. Empty.
But he’d gone too far. He’d laid that filter over everything in his life.
Including the most vibrant, alive woman he’d ever know.
He hated himself.
By the time he pulled into the driveway of her parents’ house each night, he felt like he’d been scraped hollow.
