“I don’t want to take it back.”
“Your career—”
“Is not more important than you.” He reached out, tentative, and took my hand. “Nothing is more important than you.”
I looked at our joined hands. At the cameras still clicking. Gladys was on the porch now, watching with a satisfied smile. At his slimy agent, who looked like she’d swallowed a lemon.
Then I looked at Samuel. At his beautiful face and his earnest eyes and the way he was looking at me like I was worth sacrificing everything for.
“I’m terrified,” I admitted.
“I know.”
“I don’t know how to do this. The cameras, the attention, the—”
“We’ll figure it out together.”
“You said you’re falling in love with me.”
“I am.” He squeezed my hand. “I have been since you showed up at my cabin.” He lifted his free hand to cup my face. “Stay. Please. Not because I’m asking you to be part of my circus—but because I’m asking you to be part of my life.”
The cameras clicked.
I kissed him.
Not a careful kiss. Not a private kiss. A kiss that was going to be on every tabloid cover within 24 hours, a kiss that would trend on social media for days, a kiss that said yes, I love you too, and I choose this and I choose you.
Samuel made a sound against my mouth—relief and joy and something that might have been a sob—and kissed me back with everything he had.
The photographers went absolutely berserk.
I didn’t care.
Let them watch, and take their pictures. Let the whole world see.
This was real. And I wasn’t hiding from it anymore.
When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, Samuel rested his forehead against mine.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“That’s a yes.” I pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. “I love you too, by the way. In case that wasn’t clear.”
His smile was incandescent. “It was pretty clear. But I’m glad you said it.”
“I’m going to need you to fire Sabrina.”
“Already done. In my head. Officially happening as soon as we go back inside.”
“And we’re going to have to figure out... logistics. Geography. How to make this work when you live in LA and I live in New York.”
“We will.” He kissed me again, softer this time. “Later. Right now, I just want to enjoy this.”
“This” being the fact that we were standing in the middle of a media circus, holding hands, having just declared our love for each other in front of a hundred cameras.
