But beneath all of it was something else. Something bright and fierce and so unfamiliar it took me a moment to recognize it.
Pride.
Huh. So that's what that felt like.
I'd done it. I'd actually done it.
But there was one more thing I needed to do.
Kim was at her desk, her eyes wide, watching me through the glass. She'd seen Cole flee. She didn't know the details yet, but she knew something had happened. Something big.
I walked out of my office. Crossed the floor in long strides. Didn't stop until I was standing in front of her desk.
"Kim." Her name came out rough. "Hey. I saw him leave. Did it?—"
I didn't let her finish.
I reached down, took her face in my hands, and kissed her.
Not a gentle kiss. Not a careful, appropriate-for-the-workplace kiss. HR was going to have a field day with this.
I didn't care.
I kissed her like she was oxygen and I'd been drowning. Like she was the answer to a question I'd been asking my whole life without knowing it. Like she was the only thing that mattered in a world that had been trying to fall apart. Like I wanted everyone on this floor to know exactly what she meant to me.
She made a small sound of surprise against my mouth. Then her hands came up to grip my wrists, and she kissed me back.
When I finally pulled away, we were both breathing hard.
"Xavier," she managed. "What?—"
"I want this with you." The words tumbled out, unplanned, unstoppable. "Us. Everything there is to have. A future. A family. All of it." I pressed my forehead to hers, my voice dropping to something raw and honest. "That is, if you'll have me too."
Kim stared at me. Her eyes were bright, shining with something that looked dangerously like tears.
Then she pulled me down and kissed me again.
"Yes," she whispered against my lips. "Yes."
Someone gasped.
I'd forgotten we had an audience.
The entire floor had stopped working. Assistants peered over cubicle walls. Executives had emerged from offices. Even Gerald Morrison stood frozen in the hallway, a stack of papers clutched to his chest, his mouth hanging open.
For a moment, absolute silence.
Then someone started clapping.
It was Janet from accounting, her hands coming together in slow, deliberate applause. Marcus from legal joined in. Then Patricia from HR, and David from marketing, and suddenly the whole floor was applauding, whooping, a few people actually whistling like we were the final scene of a romantic comedy.
"About damn time!" someone shouted.
"Get a room!" someone else called, but they were laughing.
I looked at Kim. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright with embarrassed delight. She buried her face against my chest, her shoulders shaking with what might have been laughter or mortification or both.
I wrapped my arms around her and grinned at our audience.
