Her cheeks are damp. Her eyes are shining, her lips are curled in the softest smile I’ve ever seen—so full of wonder, like she’s looking at something rare. LikeI’msomething rare.
She reaches up and cups my face, her fingers brushing gently along the edge of my jaw. Right near the bruise Liam gave me. Her touch is so tender it makes my throat ache.
“I’ve never felt this way before,” she says quietly. “With anyone.”
My heart slams against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. Because I know what’s coming. Ifeelit in the air between us, thick and charged and impossible to outrun.
No. No. No. No. No.
“I love you.”
Three words. That’s all it is.
My mouth parts, but no sound comes out.
29
OLIVE
Rejection
“Ilove you.”
The words hang in the air between us, fragile and trembling, like the wings of a moth too close to a flame.
My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might bruise my ribs.
I didn’t plan to say it. It just spilled out—soft, raw, soaked in everything I’ve been trying not to feel too loudly.
But I meant it. God, I meant it.
Because what we just did—what weshared—wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t casual or messy or impulsive. It was slow and deep and tethering. The kind of intimacy that leaves fingerprints on your soul. The kind that shifts something permanent inside you.
And the way he looked at me… the way he touched me… the way he held me like I was precious—like I mattered—I felt his love in every moment. Every movement. Every whispered breath against my skin.
The second the words leave my mouth, Ash goes still. His eyes stay wide open, fixed on the ceiling like it might offer him a way out. Hisarm tightens around my waist—just slightly, maybe out of instinct. But he doesn’t say anything.
Not a word.
The silence wraps around us, heavy and deafening.
I blink once, twice, trying to make sense of it. He heard me, right? He has to have heard me.
I search his face, but it’s unreadable.
My stomach twists.
His eyes finally flick down to mine, and for a second, I think I see something flicker—panic? Longing? Pain? But it’s gone too fast to name.
He doesn’t let go of me. He strokes my back, kisses my temple, his touch tender like always. But it’s theabsenceof his words that echoes the loudest.
I wait.
He stays quiet.
And I try to swallow around the lump forming in my throat.
This is the moment I’ve imagined over and over in my head—late at night when I couldn’t sleep, when I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, this was more than a fling.
