She folds her arms, instinctive armor rising.“You didn’t come to convince me to go back.”
“No,” Callum says immediately.“I came to tell you I was wrong.”
The words land cleanly, without defensiveness.
Isla searches his face.“About what?”
“About staying,” he says.“About believing that standing still was loyalty.About letting fear masquerade as responsibility.”
Her heart stutters.
“I thought the castle was what made me solid,” Callum continues.“What kept me from becoming someone who left when things got hard.”
“And instead…” Isla prompts softly.
“And instead I almost became exactly that,” he finishes.“A man who explains absence instead of correcting it.”
Her eyes burn.
“I didn’t come here to ask you to come back,” he says.“I came to tell you I’m choosing you.No caveats.No conditions.”
She swallows.“What about the castle?”
His mouth tilts in a sad smile.“It’ll still be there.Stone doesn’t vanish when you turn your back on it.”
“And you?”she asks quietly.
“I choose you,” he says.“Not that big pile of rocks, but you.Your happiness.We may not always agree about your father, but you’re the one who matters, not him.Not the castle.Only you.”
The honesty breaks something open inside her.
“I was so afraid,” Isla admits.“Afraid that if I stayed, I’d disappear.That I’d start making myself smaller just to keep something beautiful.”
Callum steps closer, slow and deliberate.“I don’t want you smaller.I want you larger than life.”
“I know,” she whispers.“I just needed to know you wouldn’t need me to be smaller.”
He stops a breath away from her.
“I don’t want a woman who stays because it’s safer,” Callum says.“I want a woman who stays because she’s chosen, and chooses me back.I want a woman who loves me with her heart and soul, as I do her.”
Isla’s laugh is soft and broken.“You finally sound like someone worth risking myself for.”
He smiles, relief and affection threading together.“I was hoping you’d say that.”
She doesn’t answer with words.
She reaches for him instead, fingers curling into the front of his shirt, anchoring herself to something real.He exhales against her hair, arms wrapping around her like he’s been holding himself apart for far too long.
This time, she doesn’t feel like she’s disappearing.
She feels seen.
They pull back just enough to look at each other, foreheads touching.
“What happens now?”Isla asks.
Callum’s smile is gentle.“Now we figure it out together.”
