I’d stopped pretending I didn’t love it.
“You’re staring at my corkboard again,” I said without turning around.
“I’m staring at you.” His voice was low, warm in the specific way that had taken me months to stop being caught off guard by. “You’re standing in my library looking like you belong here.”
“Our library.” I finally turned, finding him closer than I’d expected. “And I do belong here. You said so yourself. Repeatedly. Usually while we’re naked.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I stand by those statements.”
He crossed the remaining distance between us, his hand finding my hip with the easy familiarity of something built rather than assumed. I leaned into his warmth, breathing in cedar and leather and the particular scent that was just him — the one I’d cataloged in a service corridor at a charity gala and never been able to forget.
“The press conference is in two hours,” I said against his shoulder.
“I’m aware.”
“Are you nervous?”
His chest moved with a quiet laugh. “Terrified. But that’s never stopped me before.”
I pulled back enough to look at him properly. The storm-gray eyes that had once seemed cold now held something softer when they found mine. He still wore control like a second skin — probably always would — but he’d learned to take it off when we were alone. To let me see the man underneath without managing what I did with what I found.
“You don’t have to do this,” I reminded him. “The NDA termination could be handled through lawyers. A joint statement. Something less public.”
“No.” His thumb traced circles on my hip through the fabric of my dress. “We agreed. No more half-measures. No more managing narratives behind closed doors.” Something flickeredacross his expression. “Besides, the press will be there anyway. Might as well give them something worth reporting.”
I reached up to straighten his collar, though it didn’t need straightening. An excuse to touch him that we both understood wasn’t an excuse at all anymore.
“Sebastian Laurent, billionaire CEO, publicly terminates his own NDA with investigative journalist. No exclusivity clauses. No penalties. No strings.”
“It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that.”
“It is ridiculous. That’s what makes it newsworthy.”
He caught my hand before I could pull it away, pressing a kiss to my knuckles with the unhurried deliberateness that was so specifically his. “The ridiculous part is that I ever thought I could put our relationship in a contract.”
“To be fair, you were trying to protect yourself.”
“I was trying to control something that couldn’t be controlled.” His grip tightened slightly on my hand. “I’m still learning the difference.”
This was what we’d built over the past three months. Not a fairy tale — we still argued, still pushed against each other’s edges with the specific friction of two people who were both accustomed to being right and neither of whom was temperamentally suited to backing down gracefully. But we’d learned to do it as partners instead of opponents. To fight toward something rather than against each other.
His investment in my production company had come only after I asked for it. Only after I’d presented a business plan and projections and made it clear that I wasn’t interested in being funded as a favor or a gesture or a way of keeping me close. He’d agreed to my terms without negotiating them, treating me like any other professional venture rather than a girlfriend he needed to take care of. The novelty of that — of being taken seriously by someone who had every resource to make it easierto simply take over — still occasionally made me stop and sit with it.
And I’d kept my studio space in Logan Square. The small office with the mismatched chairs and equipment stacked in every corner and the organized chaos that helped me think. He’d visited exactly once, looked around with an expression somewhere between confusion and admiration, and never once suggested I move it somewhere more convenient to his world.
Independence within partnership. That had been the deal we’d struck, the language we’d built, the thing we returned to every time one of us forgot and had to be reminded.
“Want help or want me to listen?” he asked now, pulling me back to the present.
I blinked at him. “What?”
“You’ve got that look. The one where you’re working through something in your head.” He tilted his head slightly. “So. Want help, or want me to listen?”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Six months ago, Sebastian Laurent would have simply started solving whatever problem he perceived. Would have offered money or connections or his particular brand of ruthless efficiency without asking what I actually needed.
“Listening,” I said. “For now.”
He nodded and guided me to the leather sofa by the window, pulling me down beside him. His arm settled around my shoulders, and I tucked my feet beneath me and let myself sink into the solid warmth of him — the specific warmth of someone who had earned the right to hold you and knows it.
