I wasn’t used to caring for someone else.Not like this. I’d spent so long being managed myself that stepping in for someone else felt unfamiliar. Uncomfortable, but not in a bad way. Maybe it was because Anna didn’t want anything from me. No demands, no expectations. Just honesty.
A knock at the front door pulled me out of my head.
Delivery people arrived with garment bags and boxes. I directed them toward the guest room closet, watching as a mini department store unfolded before me. I peeked inside one of the bags, marveling at my stylist’s ability to curate perfection with almost no instruction. Then I caught a glimpse of a price tag and winced.
Approachable. Casual.Right. If you lived in a luxury magazine spread.
A few minutes later, Anna appeared in the doorway, hair still damp from a shower, wearing borrowed clothes that didn’t quite fit but somehow still worked. Her eyes landed on the neatly arranged wardrobe. She froze, gaze sweeping from one designer label to the next.
“What is this?” she asked, her voice cautious.
“Just a few things,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I figured you might need replacements for the stuff you lost.”
She picked up a T-shirt, her jaw dropping when she saw the tag. “Two hundred dollars for this? For a plain white T-shirt?” She rifled through the rack, pulling out a pair of jeans. “Three hundred for these? Luke, this is insane.”
I shrugged, trying to keep it light. “They’re just clothes.”
She held up a sleek black dress next, her eyebrows shooting up. “Two grand for this? Where exactly am I supposed to wear it? A royal ball?”
I ran a hand through my hair, realizing how this looked. “I told my stylist to keep it simple, casual,” I said defensively. “Clearly, she and I have different definitions of that.”
Anna’s disbelief melted. “Luke, I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”
My chest tightened. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel like she owed me something. “We have brand deals, so this stuff is basically free,” I said quickly. “After everything that’s happened, you shouldn’t have to stress about stuff like this. And you should be taken care of, treated like a queen.”
She set the dress down, her fingers brushing the fabric as she glanced at me. “Why are you doing this?”
Her question caught me off guard. Why was I doing this? Because seeing her struggle made something inside me twist, and I wanted to make things easier for her, even in small ways. But how could I explain that without sounding like an idiot or a chauvinist?
Instead, I led her to the desk I’d had set up by the window of another guest room, complete with a new notebook and a stack of her favorite pens. “That,” I said softly, “is because you need a space to write. And the clothes are because you deserve to feel like yourself again.”
For a moment, she stared at me, her expression unreadable. Then, she wrapped her arms around her chest and let out a sigh. “You’re impossible.”
Impossible. That’s what Sienna used to call me. But when Anna said it, it didn’t sound like an insult It was endearing. “So I’ve been told.”
The desk was nearly identical to the one in her cottage, down to the arrangement of the pens and notebooks. Her fingers brushed over the surface, and her expression shifted into something almost wistful.
“This feels like home.” Her words were barely above a whisper, but the words hit me harder than I expected. I’d been trying to fix things with grand gestures, but all she needed was a sense of normalcy. Of belonging.
And as I watched her hand tracing the edge of the wood, it struck me how much she’d been holding back. The fear of taking up space, of letting someone help, mirrored my own. Maybe that’s why I’d pushed so hard.
I thought of her wall of rejection letters, now gone. She’d carried them like armor, and now that they were destroyed, I wasn’t sure how she felt about it. I didn’t want to poke the wound, but maybe this was my chance to say what had been swirling in my head.
“You know,” I began carefully, leaning against the doorframe, “those rejection letters being gone... maybe it’s a fresh start. You don’t have to quit at one hundred.”
She looked up at me, the corner of her mouth lifting into a determined smile. “No, I think that means this story, my hundredth, will be my masterpiece.”
She was extraordinary, plain and simple.
A smile crept onto her face. “You’ve got good taste. Even if you’re terrible at understanding budgets.”
I grinned. “That’s what they all say.”
She shook her head, but a warm smile lingered. She walked to her bedroom, to the closet full of new clothes, and swept her hand gently over the sleeve of a cashmere sweater. Then, she looked up at me with something happier in her eyes.
And that’s when it hit me. I didn’t just want her to feel at homehere.I wanted her to feel at homewith me.
It wasn’t just about giving her space to heal, write, or find herself.
