Words won't come. I can only stand here with his hand on my face and his body blocking any escape route as the sun’s ascent claims the valley and my flight gets closer.
"Why are you really leaving?"
The question punches through every defense I have left. My breathing goes ragged, chest heaving against the shirt that smells like him, and tears I've been holding back for hours finally spill over.
"Because I'm terrified." The confession rips out of me. "I'm terrified that if I stay, I'll lose myself again. Everything about me is wrapped up in my job. I spent seventeen years becoming someone strong, someone capable, someone who doesn't need—"
"Someone who won’t ask for help." His voice is rough and knowing. "Someone who thinks they don’t need rest. Someone who doesn't need me."
Nodding makes more tears fall, and the hunger and determination in his expression when he pulls back to look at me makes my chest feel like it’s cracking open. "Sloane. Listen to me." His other hand comes up to frame my face, thumbs wiping away tears that won't stop falling. "You think you became strong by leaving all those years ago. But you were always strong. You were already strong at twenty-one when you walked away. You're strong now. But strength isn't the same as armor."
"I don't know how to be soft anymore."
"Yes, you do." His forehead presses to mine again, his pulse hammering against my wrists where my hands have somehow found their way to his chest, fingers curling into his shirt. "You've been soft with me every night for the past five days. You know how to let go. You're just afraid."
"Of what? I don’t even know." The question comes out as a whisper.
"You said it last night, darling. That if you stop performing, you'll stop mattering."
The heaviness of hearing it from someone else lands in my bones and stays there. My knees go weak, and if he wasn't holding me up, I'd collapse right here on my own porch.
"You matter to me," he says quietly, and every word is true. "Not because of what you do. Not because of what you produce or how many hours you put in for a corporate overlord. You matter because you exist. Because you're you. The woman who cried when a horse nuzzled her because she'd forgotten what gentleness felt like. The woman who fell asleep on my shoulder during that last sunrise because you finally felt safe enough to rest. The woman who can't stop working because she's afraid to find out who she is without it."
I’m sobbing now, the sound ugly and broken, and my hands fist in his shirt while seventeen years of running finally catches up with me.
"What if I'm no one without it?" The question burns in my throat.
"Let’s figure out who you’re going to become. Together." He kisses my forehead, my temple, the corner of my mouth with a tenderness that makes my whole body shake. "But Sloane, you need to choose. I can't watch you walk away again."
His hands slide from my face down to my shoulders, grounding me in his touch. "You think you need to be perfect for me to want you. You think if you stop achieving, you'll stop beingenough. But Sloane—" His voice breaks, and vulnerability cracks his expression wide open. "I don't want the VP. I don't want the woman who works eighty-hour weeks and collapses from exhaustion. I want the woman who's terrified right now. The one who doesn't know who she is without the armor. The one who's breaking apart in my arms and still trying to hold it together."
Tears stream down my face, hot and unstoppable.
"I want your broken parts," he says fiercely. "I want the mess and the fear and the not-knowing. I want to be there when you figure out who you are without the performance. That's the woman I've been waiting seventeen years for. Not the polished version. The real one."
The words shatter something fundamental in my chest. The belief that I have to earn love through achievement. The terror that without my career, I'm nothing. The armor I've been wearing so long I forgot it wasn't skin.
"Let me prove it." His voice ghosts against my lips. "Let me show you how it feels to be wanted in full. Every jagged edge and every shadow you’ve been trying to hide."
His palms slide down to my waist, hauling me into his space until we’re a single, heat-soaked silhouette. I’m lost in the rhythm of his hammering heart and the scent of leather and coffee that marks him as home.
Before answering is possible, he's guiding me down the porch steps and across the yard toward the barn. The sky is full light now, pink and gold painting the hills, and my suitcase sits abandoned on the porch behind us.
Inside the barn, he leads me up the ladder to the hayloft. The same place where he made me come apart. The same place where choosing him with my body happened even though my mind was still running.
Turning me to face him, he backs me toward the hay bales until my legs hit and I sit down on the blanket we left spreadout. Kneeling between my thighs like before, hands on my knees, he looks up at me with hunger and determination written across every line of his face.
"I'm going to ask for permission one more time," he says. "And if you say no, I'll drive you to the airport myself. But if you say yes—" His voice breaks. "If you say yes, Sloane, I need you to mean it. I need you to choose this. Choose me. Choose yourself."
My hands shake, and I force them flat against my jeans. The sharp prickle of the hay through the blanket acts as a lightning rod, pulling me back to the barn, his presence, and the sheer gravity of what I’m stepping into.
"Yes." The word holds more power than any time I’ve said it before.
His eyes go dark, hungry. Standing, he pulls me up with him, and then his mouth is on mine. Not gentle but claiming. Desperate. His tongue slides against mine while his hands work the shirt’s buttons, pushing it off my shoulders until it pools at my feet.
Cool air hits my bare skin. He unclasps my bra and slips the straps over my shoulders. My breasts swing free, heavy and full. His sharp intake of breath when he sees me makes heat flood through my body and pool in my pussy.
"Let me show you what it looks like when someone chooses you," he says, brushing my lips. "All of you. Even the broken parts."
