The difference was so stark it was almost laughable.
I stood up. Walked to the window. Twitched the curtain aside.
The yard was still full of photographers, but they’d been pushed back to the tree line. And there walking toward the crowd—
Samuel.
My heart stopped.
He wasn’t running from them, or hiding. He was walking directly toward the wall of cameras, his shoulders squared, his chin lifted.
What the hell was he doing?
I pressed closer to the window, my breath fogging the glass.
The photographers went wild. Flashes exploded. Microphones thrust forward. A dozen voices shouting questions at once.
Samuel held up a hand, and—impossibly—they quieted.
I couldn’t hear what he was saying. The window was too thick, the distance too far. But I could see his face, calm and determined, as he spoke directly into the cameras.
Sabrina appeared at the edge of the crowd, her phone raised, her expression shifting from horror to calculation. She tried to approach Samuel, but Gladys materialized and blocked her path.
I needed to know what he was saying. I needed to—
I ran out of the bedroom, through the living room, and yanked open the front door.
Samuel’s voice carried across the yard, clear and steady.
“—not a publicity stunt. It’s not a love triangle. And it’s not something my agent cooked up for engagement metrics.” He took a breath. “The man in that video is someone I care about.Someone I’m falling in love with. And I’m not going to stand here and pretend otherwise just because it makes better copy for your tabloids.”
The cameras clicked frantically. Someone shouted a question about his contract.
“I don’t care about the contract,” Samuel said. “I don’t give a damn about the network or the ratings or whether this helps or hurts my career. All I care about is him. And if being with him means losing all of this,”—he gestured at the cameras, the chaos, the circus—"then fine. Take it. I’d rather have him."
I couldn’t breathe.
“His name is Farley,” Samuel continued, and something in his voice cracked. “Farley Davenport. He’s brilliant and prickly and he makes lists about everything and he can’t admit when he’s scared, so he pushes people away instead. And just now, he pushed me away, and I understand why—this is overwhelming, and I brought this chaos into his life without meaning to. But I need him to know...”
He turned, scanning the cabin, and his eyes found me standing in the doorway.
“I need you to know,” he said, speaking directly to me now, the cameras be damned. “This isn’t a circus to me. You’re not a story or a scandal or content for someone’s feed. You’re the first real thing I’ve had in years. And I would rather lose everything else than lose you.”
The photographers were going insane, flashes everywhere.
I didn’t care about any of it.
I walked off the porch. Across the yard. Through the gauntlet of cameras and questions and strangers who wanted pieces of us.
Samuel watched me come, his expression raw, hopeful, terrified.
I stopped in front of him. The entire world was watching, and I didn’t care.
“You’re an idiot,” I said.
His face fell. “Farley—”
“You just told the entire world you’re falling in love with me.” My voice was shaking. “On camera. Permanently. You can’t take that back.”
