And whether I was brave enough to find out which one applied to us.
CHAPTER 19
Gianna
The nonprofit officein Brooklyn was small and cluttered, squeezed between a bodega and a laundromat in a neighborhood that hadn’t been gentrified yet. The kind of place that served communities instead of investors, that measured success in families housed rather than profit margins.
I stood outside for ten minutes before I could make myself go in.
Through the window, I saw him. Archer sat at a desk buried in files, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie gone. He looked different—thinner, but it suited him, made his features sharper and more defined. His hair was longer than he used to keep it—less corporate, more human—falling across his forehead in a way that made my fingers remember what it felt like to run through it.
He was reading something intently, making notes in the margins, completely absorbed. I watched him push his hair back in that familiar gesture he did when concentrating, and something in my chest twisted painfully.
God, he was beautiful.
This was a mistake. I should leave. Should turn around and walk away before he saw me, before I had to face the reality of him instead of just the memory.
But then he looked up.
Our eyes met through the window, and the world stopped.
He went completely still—his pen frozen mid-word, his coffee cup halfway back to the desk. He stared at me like he couldn’t quite believe I was real, like I might be a hallucination his exhausted brain had conjured.
The look on his face broke something inside me. Shock and hope and fear and longing—all of it written so clearly across his features I could read it from here. His gray eyes—God, I’d forgotten how intense they were—locked onto mine with an expression that made my knees weak.
He stood slowly, carefully, like I might bolt if he moved too fast. Set down his pen with care. Never took his eyes off me.
And I couldn’t move. Couldn’t make myself walk away or go inside or do anything except stand there and feel every emotion I’d been suppressing for six months crash over me at once.
A woman came out carrying a stack of folders. She held the door open and looked at me expectantly.
“You coming in?”
I nodded and stepped inside before I could change my mind, before I could listen to the part of my brain that said this was dangerous, that letting myself want him again would only lead to more pain.
“Gianna.” Archer spoke as I walked toward him.
My name in his voice after six months of silence did something to my breathing. Made it harder, sharper. Made my chest feel too tight and my eyes burn with tears I refused to let fall.
Up close, he was even more devastating. The tiredness I’d seen through the window translated to shadows under his eyes,but they only made his features more striking. His hair was slightly mussed from running his hands through it, and I wanted desperately to reach up and smooth it down, to touch him and confirm he was real.
He looked at me like I was the answer to every question he’d been asking, like seeing me here was both his greatest hope and his worst fear realized.
And I looked at him and remembered everything. Every touch, every kiss. Every moment of joy before the truth had shattered it all.
“Hi,” I managed, my voice coming out small.
“Hi.” He took half a step forward, then stopped himself. “You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
I held up the deed with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Did you do this?”
He looked at the papers, then back at my face. “Yes.”
“Why?”
