He kissed my cheek. “I would never.”
We leaned against the table side by side, fingers intertwined, studying the rough pencil sketches of what would eventually become our home.
Not my escape route.
Not his fortress of solitude.
Ours.
The word still sent a warm bloom through my chest.
He squeezed my hand gently. “You know, if someone had told me I’d feel happiest in a lodge kitchen, talking about paint samples and wedding playlists—”
“You would’ve run screaming.”
He smiled. “Probably.”
“And I,” I said, lifting his hand to my lips, “would’ve been booking a flight to Madagascar.”
“And now?” he asked.
“Now?” I looked up at him. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
His eyes softened with something I wanted to see forever.
“Me neither,” he said. “Not as long as you’re here.”
We kissed again — slow, warm, the kind that saidthis is where we start, not end.
When he rested his lips against my ear, voice barely above a whisper, he said the words that wrapped themselves around my heart and settled there like they’d always belonged.
“You’re my home, Sienna.”
I closed my eyes, letting those words sink in.
“And you,” I whispered back, “are the one place I never want to leave.”
Outside, a breeze rustled the last autumn leaves.
Inside, the fire crackled softly.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, wrapped in his arms, I realized that falling in love hadn’t made my world smaller.
It had made it infinite, and for the first time in my life… I was exactly where I wanted to be.
