Graham re-enters my orbit with intention. We meet at his foundation's offices, sleek and modern, intimidating in scale. He walks me through the programs, the numbers, and the impact. It’s… massive. Global. The kind of work I dreamed about when I was younger and didn’t know how unreachable it was. Didn't know what life would throw at me.
“I want you to oversee all of it,” he says plainly.
It’s overwhelming and intoxicating... and it’s terrifying.
“I need time,” I tell him honestly.
“Of course,” he says. “But think about what you could do.”
That night, curled against Julian on the couch, his dress shirt hanging loose on me, his joggers soft under my cheek, I tell him everything.
The job.
The scale.
The fear.
He listens without interrupting.
When I finish, he brushes his thumb along my arm thoughtfully. “You’ve already done impossible things on your own,” he says. “Now you’re not alone.”
I look up at him. “What if it’s too much?”
“Then we adjust,” he says easily. “Or we build something together. Add a charitable arm to Northwell. Give you the resources without burning you out.”
The fact that he’s thought about this, about me, before I even asked, steals the air from my lungs.
"Really?" I ask, choking back tears.
"Of course," he smiles, "We have been thinking about it for a while, and when I met you, it clicked that you would be perfect. But then Graham asked you, and I didn't want it to come across like I was jealous and throwing my money at the problem."
I almost said it then. It was on the tip of my tongue, but instead I sat up, climbed into his lap and showed him how happy he made me.
The months pass like that.
Not perfectly.
Not dramatically.
Just… together.
I bring him lunch when he forgets to eat.
He brings me dinner when I forget to stop working.
I fall asleep in his office more than once.
The guys stop filtering themselves around me.
And I realize one night, watching him laugh with Emily over something stupid, that I’m no longer waiting for the ground to drop out from under me.
I’m standing.
Balanced.
In love.
It feels like a life I chose.
