She looks at me. Her smile fades, her eyes unreadable.
No venom. No fire. Just breathless stillness.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I tell her. “I’m not asking for anything back. Just five minutes to stand in front of you—as the man who lost everything—when I lost you.”
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t run.
So I keep going.
“I gave it all up,” I say. “Zephyra. The soldiers. The labs. The Order. Not because I lost control—but because I saw what it did to you. What I became.”
She crosses her arms over her chest like she’s holding herself together.
“Crimson Inc is building futures instead of tearing them apart. Hollister’s funded. Fully.” I hesitate. “I put your name on the grant paperwork.”
She flinches. “Don’t do that,” she says quietly. “Don’t immortalize me like I’m dead.”
I nod, stepping back half a pace. Giving her space. “Then let me say it plainly. I’m trying to be the man who builds things instead of breaking them. And I miss you.”
Her eyes soften.
Just a flicker. But it wrecks me.
Because I’ve been starving for that flicker. Three months of silence, distance, and pretending I could breathe without her—and now it’s here. In the space between her lashes. In the way her jaw doesn’t tighten when she looks at me.
“You look tired,” she says.
“I am.”
She studies me like she’s deciding if I’m still the man who hurt her—or someone new wearing his face. “I’m not ready to forgive you.”
“I’d question your judgment if you were.”
That draws a faint laugh. Barely there. “Still an idiot.”
“Always,” I whisper. “But maybe now I’m one trying to do something right.”
Silence settles between us, heavy and full.
Then she says, “Come here.”
I do.
I move slowly, afraid that if I rush, she’ll disappear again. My hands shake. I haven’t let myself feel this in weeks, because feeling it would mean admitting how much I already lost.
She reaches for me. Her fingers twist into the front of my shirt like she might change her mind at any second—but she doesn’t. She pulls me closer.
Her mouth finds mine—soft. Trembling.
A kiss with no urgency. No rage. Just the question:
Can I still love you after all this?
“I don’t know if this fixes anything,” she whispers.
“I’m not here to fix it,” I say, pressing my forehead to hers. “I’m here to hold what’s left. If you’ll let me.”
Her breath catches. I feel it in my bones.
