After a while, we head barefoot to his kitchen. I wear his shirt like a dress, hair pulled up into a messy bun. The smell of garlic and herbs fills the air, and there's wine breathing on the counter. He moves around the space with easy confidence, plating pasta and pouring wine, and I watch him, this man who commands boardrooms but also knows his way around a kitchen.
"I talked to my father today," Dylan says as we settle at his dining table. The city spreads below us through the windows. "About the board situation."
My stomach tightens. "And?"
"He reminded me that he faced similar pressure once. When he promoted my mother to vice president, people questioned his judgment. He said the ones who matter will see the truth eventually. And the ones who don't see it aren't worth keeping around anyway."
"Your mother was vice president?"
Dylan nods. "For fifteen years. Then she stepped back to raise Jake and me, but she was brilliant at it. Still is, when she consults. The point is—" He reaches across the table for my hand. "My father didn't build this company by letting fear dictate his choices. He built it by believing in the right people and fighting for them."
"Even when it was hard?"
"Especially when it was hard."
We eat in comfortable silence for a while, the kind that comes from knowing each other deeply. When we're done, Dylan leads me to his couch, and I curl into his side, his arm around my shoulders.
"I need to tell you something," I say into the quiet moment. "These past few days, when I was pushing you away, I told myself it was to protect you. But I was also terrified."
Dylan waits, letting me find my words.
"Because I could feel myself falling, and I didn't know if I could survive being broken again. With you…" My voice catches. "With you, I'm more myself than I've ever been. And that's even scarier somehow."
"Why?"
I turn to look at him, meeting those gray eyes that see too much. "Because if I'm completely myself and you still leave, then it means the real me wasn't enough. Meaning Oliver was right—"
Dylan cuts me off with a kiss. Slow, deep, and devastating. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
"You are enough, Avery," he says fiercely. "You're more than enough. You're everything to me. I know that we are taking things slow, but I need to tell you… I love you."
The certainty in his voice breaks something open in my chest. "I love you too," I whisper. "I'm terrified, and I want to be yours, and I don't know what we're going to do about the board or the gossip or any of it, but I know I don't want to face it without you."
"Then you won't have to." He kisses me again, softer this time. "We'll fight them together. And if we lose the company, we'll build something new."
We stay like that for a long time, wrapped in each other on his couch while the city glitters through the fog below. Eventually, Dylan's phone buzzes, and he glances at it with a frown.
"What?" I ask.
"Just a reminder about the board meeting on Monday." He sets the phone down.
Fear spikes through me, but I breathe through it. "Then we'll deal with it on Monday. Together."
Dylan's smile is warm with approval. He pulls me closer, and I let myself sink into his warmth, into the safety of his presence. Here, now, I'm exactly where I need to be.
Chapter ten
Dylan
The board meeting is everything I prepared for and more.
I enter the conference room with the thick folder of documentation tucked under my arm, my expression carefully neutral. My father is already there, sitting at the head of the table. We talked last night, strategized, and made sure we were aligned on every point. But seeing him here now, solid and sure, makes gratitude surge through my chest.
The board members file in over the next few minutes. Richard with his perpetual frown. Rose Taylor with her careful neutrality. Harrison from legal with a small, encouraging nod when she sees me. Others whose names I know but whose loyalty I'm about to test.
I can see the speculation in their eyes, the whispered conversations that stop when I enter. Someone laughs quietly at something Richard says, and the sound sets my teeth on edge. They're here to judge Avery, to question her merit, to reduce her months of brilliant work to office gossip.
I don't wait for them to start.
