Riven and Mireya left together, his hand finding the small of her back as they walked out. The door closed behind them, and then it was just Cassian and me, standing in the conference room where our futures had almost ended.
"We can stay," he said.
"We can stay."
"Both of us.."
"Together."
He pulled me close, his hands circling my waist. "I was ready to walk away and leave everything—all of it—just to choose you."
I smiled, tears pooling my eyes. "So was I."
"But now we don't have to choose between each other and everything else. We can have both."
I reached out, resting my hands on his shoulders as I tiptoed, kissing him without hesitation. Cassian sucked his breath, but pulled me in so that my chest was against his. His body waswarm against mine, something I’d yearned for for so long I couldn’t even remember when it started.
But he was here, kissing me, telling me he was choosing me through every touch and move.
He was real. We were really doing this, through a promise made with lips and breath and the press of my body against him, melding perfectly.
When we finally pulled apart, I was smiling so wide that my cheeks ached. I hadn't done this in so long I'd forgotten what it felt like.
"What about Daniel's offer?" Cassian asked.
"I'll call him Monday and tell him I'm staying at Obsidian." I paused, studying his face. "Unless you want to take the position with me? We could go together. Start fresh somewhere new."
"No." He shook his head slowly. "I want to stay here. I do not want to keep reacting to offers and opportunities."
"Are you sure? I don't want you to give up something you want just to?—"
"Calla." He cupped my face in his hands again, his thumbs tracing my cheekbones. "I'm not giving up anything. I'm choosing. Consciously and deliberately. This is where I want to be. With you. Doing the work that we both love."
"Alright. We’re in this together." I said.
"Okay!" He gave me a boyish grin, the same one I remembered from our first date, our wedding day, and the thousand moments I tried to forget and never quite managed. "I really like the sound of that."
We left the conference room hand in hand.
EPILOGUE
CASSIAN
Six Months Later
"They're late,"I said, checking my phone.
"They're always late. Riven runs a hospital. Time is more of a suggestion for him." Calla reached across the table and stole an olive from the appetizer plate. "Relax. We're not on call tonight. We have nowhere to be."
She was right. For the first time for what seemed like forever, we had an entire evening with no surgeries scheduled, no meetings, and no emergencies demanding our attention. Tonight, we’re just having dinner with friends and then home, to the apartment we'd moved into together three months ago.
Home. I still wasn't used to that word meaning something again.
Riven and Mireya appeared at the hostess stand five minutes later. They looked like they'd stepped out of a magazine, Riven in a charcoal suit that fit him perfectly and Mireya in a deep burgundy dress that made her dark eyes even more striking. His hand rested around her waist, casually exposing his possessiveness.
"Sorry we're late," Riven said, sliding into the booth beside me. "The board meeting ran over."
"Everything okay?" I asked.
