My throat burns. “The truth is he didn’t just… finance my shop. He owned the air around it. He made every ‘help’ feel like a debt. He kept me grateful and small.”
Wyatt’s eyes go darker.
I shove my chin out of his hand, because I need space to speak. “He wasn’t just a boyfriend.”
Wyatt’s gaze pins me. “What was he?”
“A leash,” I say, and the word tastes like humiliation. “He was… a leash I let myself wear because I thought it was normal. Because my family taught me that being taken care of is the same as being loved.”
Wyatt’s nostrils flare slightly. His hands curl at his sides.
“And now?” he asks.
I swallow hard. “Now he’s tightening it because I slipped out.”
Wyatt steps closer again, so close my back hits the edge of the display counter. The candy case is behind me, full of truffles I’mnot even sure I’m allowed to sell, and Wyatt is in front of me like a wall.
“You’re not going back,” he says.
I let out a shaky breath that turns into anger because fear is exhausting. “I don’t want to. But I’m terrified.”
Wyatt’s eyes flicker. “Of what?”
I laugh again, but this time it cracks. “Of losing everything. Of my dream dying because a man with a tie decided to punish me. Of having to go home and listen to my mother say, ‘I told you so,’ and my father looking at me like I proved him right.”
Wyatt’s jaw clenches hard.
I force the next words out. “Of crawling back to Graham because at least then I’d still have a roof and a key to my own shop.”
Silence drops.
Wyatt doesn’t move. He just looks at me like he’s seeing blood.
Then his voice goes low. “He doesn’t get you back.”
My breath catches.
I try to scoff. “Wyatt?—”
“He doesn’t,” Wyatt repeats, louder now, and the restraint in him snaps just enough that it changes the temperature in the room. “Not with money. Not with fear. Not with a smile.”
I shake my head, throat tight. “You can’t?—”
Wyatt’s hand lands on my waist, fingers spreading over the flannel like he’s claiming territory. His other hand cups the back of my neck, steadying me, holding me.
“You want to know what you can do?” he says, voice rough. “You can stop thinking you have to earn your right to exist.”
My pulse hammers.
Wyatt leans in, not touching my mouth yet, hovering close enough that I feel his breath on my lips. It’s torture. It’s control.
“You want a shield?” he murmurs. “Then let me be it.”
I swallow, voice barely there. “This is still a deal.”
Wyatt’s mouth tilts, dark. “We can call it whatever you need to sleep.”
Then he kisses me.
