Yeah. We should.
"Inside?" I ask.
She nods.
We sit on the couch. Not touching. A careful foot of space between us that feels like the Atlantic.
"So," she says.
"So."
She takes a breath. Squares her shoulders the way she does before she tackles something she's afraid of.
"I really, really like you."
The words hit me low. Soft but devastating.
"I really like you too," I say.
She looks up. Meets my eyes.
"Not fake like," she clarifies. "Not 'this is convenient' like. Not 'we had great chemistry in a high-pressure situation' like."
"I know."
"Real like."
Real love, I think. But I don't say it.
Because "like" is safer. "Like" doesn't carry the weight of expectations or the pressure of fifty thousand dollars that just hit her account. It doesn't carry the question of whether her feelings grew because I helped her earn that money, or whether mine are clouded by a week of paradise and proximity and a woman who dismantles my discipline without trying.
She needs her win to land clean. I won't let my feelings contaminate it.
"This feels real," she says. Her hand presses flat against her sternum. "In here. It's not just the palm trees or the fake dating or the adrenaline."
"It's real for me too."
"Good." Her voice cracks. "Because I was worried I was—"
"You're not."
"You don't know what I was going to say."
"You were going to say you were worried you were alone in this." I hold her gaze. "You're not."
She exhales. Shaky.
And I want to say it. The words are right there—heavy, certain, pressing against the back of my teeth.
I love you.
But I can't.
Because Jane's fifty thousand dollars hit her account eleven minutes ago. She's been in survival mode for years—supporting Grace, keeping the business alive, choosing between groceries and ceiling repairs. She earned every cent of that money through intelligence, grit, and a plan that worked because she made it work. My role was support. Hers was strategy.
But the way it happened—me recording Blake, me getting the final footage—I don't want gratitude confused with something deeper. I don't want the relief of financial security tangled up with the warmth she feels sitting next to me on this couch.
I want her love chosen freely. Not in the glow of a rescue.
