I stop a few paces short as the silence stretches taut between us, with her phone still grasped firmly in her hand.
TWENTY-EIGHT
olivia
The soundof his voice pulls me out of the fog.
“Baby?”
I turn slowly, the phone still warm in my hand. The words from the call still reverberate through me like a struck note I can’t quiet.
We’d very much like to offer you the position, should you still be interested.
The implications hit all at once.
If I accept, it means months—potentially, years—apart. If I decline, I lose a future I’ve spent half my life working toward. The choice I thought I’d been spared has come back like a ghost I didn’t summon, demanding to be made.
I force air into my lungs and slip the phone into my pocket as though hiding the evidence could make it less real.
“Hey,” I manage, my voice lighter than I feel. “You’re early.”
He walks into the room, unhurried, hands in his pockets. With each measured step, the familiar scent of cedar and clean linen drifts closer, wrapping around me.
“Thought I’d make sure my father wasn’t working you into the ground,” he says, a trace of humor under the words.
I laugh lightly, but my eyes stay fixed somewhere near the floor. My heart won’t slow.
He stops just shy of touching me. Another pause stretches thin, until he says quietly, “But above all, I missed you.”
That pulls my eyes to his.
The light from the window hits him in a way that makes my breath catch—gold licking at the sharp line of his jaw, turning his hair to something molten at the edges. He looks like he could have walked out of a painting, or some historical romance novel. Too composed, too heartbreakingly beautiful for the world we live in.
He tilts his head slightly, studying me. “Good call?”
The question lands like a test I’m not ready for.
I could tell him now. I could say,It was Castor & Wyatt, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.
But I can already see the flicker of concern that would pass across his face, the way he’d start thinking ten steps ahead of me, trying to solve something that isn’t his to fix. I want to hold this moment—our fragile peace—just a little longer.
“It was…” My voice catches. “Unexpected.” I let it hang there and pivot clumsily. “Did you have a good day?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead he asks in a deceptively casual tone, “Was it your mom?” His gaze roves over me, patient and heavy.
The relief is instant, shameful. An easy out, offered so gently I almost believe I deserve it.
“Yes,” I reply quickly, nodding once. “She just—had a question about the accounting for this month.” The lie comes out smoothly, and the guilt follows right on its heels.
Nathaniel nods once. I can tell he’s not convinced, but he lets it pass.
I know how unfair it is to him, so I step closer, searching for a way to undo the knot between us. “But that’s not important.”
His hands stay buried in his pockets, as if he’s holding himself back. “Then what is?”
I can see the toll that his restraint is taking on him, so I remind myself that he deserves the version of me that chooses him too. So, I reach out first, looping my arms around his waist and fitting myself against him.
“That I missed you too,” I confess quietly. The steady rise and fall of his chest settles the brewing chaos inside me, and when I look up at him, the smile that comes feels real.
