I sigh. “Because I know what it looks like when you’re trying to outrun your feelings. And I don’t want to be just another escape route.”
She withdraws her hand and shifts her position, sitting up to face me. The loss of her touch leaves me cold, but I know this conversation needs to happen.
“Fine.” She exhales. “You want to talk? Let’s talk. I worked so hard for that firm. I worked my ass off and…” She lets out a deep breath, and I can see the tears welling in her eyes.
“I sacrificed everything,” Minji continues, her voice breaking. “Birthdays, holidays, relationships—all of it. And for what? To have some man who’s never worked half as hard as me take what should’ve been mine?”
The tears start falling now. I’m frozen for a moment by the raw emotion on her face. I’ve never seen Minji cry like this—not even when I told her about my role in the Hui-Wangs’ reconciliation. This is different. This is years of pain finally breaking through.
“I just—” Her voice cracks completely, and a sob escapes her. “I don’t know who I am without this. If I’m not Partner Minji Lee, Esq., then who the hell am I?”
I reach for her, but she puts up a hand, shaking her head.
“No, let me get this out. This is what you wanted.” She wipes furiously at her eyes. “My whole life has been about being perfect. The perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect lawyer. But it was never enough. It’s never enough.”
She looks at me, eyes red and vulnerable in a way that makes my chest ache. “What if I quit and I fail at whatever comes next? What if I stay and keep hitting this same glass ceiling? What if I’m just… not enough? Not for any of it?”
I can’t hold back anymore. I pull her against me, and this time she doesn’t resist. She collapses into my chest, herbody shaking with sobs that feel like they’re being ripped from somewhere deep inside her.
“You are enough,” I whisper fiercely into her hair. “You’ve always been enough. The firm didn’t deserve you. They never did.”
Her fingers clutch at my shirt as she cries, and I hold her tighter, feeling my own tears threatening to spill over. I’ve written a hundred emotional breakdowns in my novels, but none of those words prepared me for the reality of holding someone you love while they finally let their walls crumble.
“I’m so tired,” she whispers against my chest. “I’m so fucking tired of fighting for every inch.”
“Then stop fighting for a while,” I say, stroking her hair. “Just be here with me. We’ll figure out the rest together.”
She pulls back to look at me, her face tear-stained and beautiful in its honesty. “What if I don’t know how to do that? What if I don’t know how to just… be?”
“Then I’ll show you,” I promise. “One day at a time.”
She takes a shaky breath, then reaches up to touch my face, her fingers tracing my jaw like she’s seeing me for the first time. “Why do you care so much? About me? After everything? I pushed you away again for weeks and yet you’re still here, still want me.”
“Why? Because Honeybee, I fucking love you.” I didn’t mean to say it—not like this, not when she’s vulnerable and breaking apart in my arms. But there it is, the raw, unfiltered truth I’ve been carrying since our weekend in Napa.
Minji freezes, her tear-streaked face a portrait of shock. “What did you just say?”
“I love you,” I repeat, softer this time, but no less certain. “I’m in love with you, Minji Lee. Probably since our college days.”
She blinks rapidly, fresh tears welling up. “Aaron, you can’t—this isn’t?—”
“I know the timing is terrible,” I say, wiping a tear from her cheek. “But it’s true. I’ve tried writing it a thousand different ways in my head, looking for the perfect moment, the perfect words. There aren’t any.”
“I’m a mess,” she whispers, gesturing vaguely at herself. “I don’t even know what I’m doing with my life anymore.”
“Join the club,” I say, trying to smile through the tightness in my throat. “I canceled the rest of my book tour to be with you. Tabitha might actually murder me in my sleep.”
A laugh escapes her. “That’s different.”
“Is it?” I cup her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me. “Minji, I don’t care if you’re a hotshot partner or if you quit tomorrow to open a bakery or if you decide to move to Antarctica to study penguins. I just want to be wherever you are.”
Her eyes search mine, looking for the catch, the fine print, the hidden clause. Always the lawyer.
“Why?” her voice small.
The question breaks something open in my chest. “Because you’re the most headstrong person I’ve ever known.” The words rush out like they’ve been waiting forever to be spoken. “Because you fight for what matters. Because you see through bullshit faster than anyone I’ve ever met. Because when you laugh—really laugh—it feels like I’ve accomplished something extraordinary. You don’t let me get away with anything, and somehow that makes me want to be better. Because even when you’re breaking apart, you’re still the strongest person in the room.”
“Aaron.”
