She steps back. Her hand comes up to her mouth.
“Grayson. We’re from different worlds. Quite literally.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It—”
“I’ll find a way to make it work.” My voice has gone hoarse. “I always do.”
She shakes her head. She’s looking past my shoulder now, at the water, anywhere except at me. Her arms wrap around herself.
The silence stretches.
“Why?” I demand finally. My voice scrapes. “Why are you rejecting me?”
“It’s not—”
“There has to be a reason.” My fingers tighten. “There has to be a reason you think I’m not good enough for you.”
“I don’t think you’re not good enough for me!”
It comes out of her loud, almost shouted, and a bird lifts off a nearby branch. She presses her lips together. Her eyes are wet.
“Then what?”
“It’s not the worlds, Grayson!” She throws her hands up. The bandage pulls, and she winces and keeps going anyway. “It’s our social statuses! That’s what it is!”
I stare at her.
“I don’t want to be with you until I can stand next to you on an equal footing.” Her voice is wrecked. “And that can never happen. I have nothing to my name. My bank account is in double digits. I don’t even have a home, Grayson. There is too much disparity between us. I will always be the woman you took in. The nurse you saved. The one you had to pay off. I will never be your partner. I will be your project!”
I close the distance between us and kiss her.
She makes a small, surprised sound against my mouth, and I take the second to pull her into me by the back of her head. I kiss her until the rigidity goes out of her shoulders. I kiss her until she grips the front of my jacket and twists.
I pull back just enough to speak.
“Your home is where Ethan and I are.” My forehead presses against hers. “We want to be your home. I don’t care if you have two cents to your name or two million. I just want you. Both of us do.”
“Grayson—”
“I can give you everything.” I cup her face in both hands carefully. “I might have money and a name and all of this, but every bit of it is meaningless if I don’t have you. None of it is worth a goddamn thing without you.”
A tear slides down her cheek, and I catch it with my thumb. I kiss the wet track it left. I kiss the other side, where another one is forming.
“I can be anything you want.” My voice is shaking now, and I don’t care. “If you’re not satisfied with what I am, tell me. I’ll change. I’ll learn. I’ll do whatever you need.”
“Grayson, please—”
“Just don’t ask me to give you up.”
She makes a small, broken sound.
“Don’t tell me you don’t have a home.” My thumb traces her cheekbone. “If you don’t like this house, we’ll get a new one. Anywhere you want. You can decorate it any way you want, tear down walls, paint everything pink, I don’t care. Ethan and I just want to be wherever you are. You want to stand on equal footing, fine. I won’t stop you from working. I won’t stand in your way. Do what you have to, but don’t put money between us. Don’t put status between us. My love does not see any of that.”
Her knees give.
I catch her on the way down, and she lets me ease her to the pine needles, her hand fisted in my shirt, her face pressing into my chest.
