But Clara hadn’t left Sam Talley.
And somewhere deep inside Grant, something old and wounded had finally loosened its grip.
Izzy looked up at him slowly.
Those impossible blue eyes held hers beneath the soft spill of rain and porch light, steady and certain in a way that made her chest ache.
No fear. No distance. No walls.
Grant reached for her then, one rough hand sliding along her waist as he pulled her gently against him.
The kiss was slow.
A promise.
Izzy’s hands slipped beneath his jacket as she held him tighter, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath her palms while the rain whispered softly through the dark Carolina pasture around them.
When they finally pulled apart, neither of them moved very far.
Grant rested his forehead lightly against hers.
“Call me when you land in Denver.”
Izzy smiled softly.
“You planning on hovering over me from thirteen hundred miles away, Scott?”
“Probably.”
She laughed quietly, but emotion was already rising thick in her throat again.
There were still things neither of them had fully said aloud yet.
But standing there wrapped in his arms beneath the mountain rain, Izzy realized neither of them needed the words tonight.
Because for the first time since she’d come to Sylva?—
They both already knew where she belonged.
56
RiNo Arts District — Denver — Three Weeks Later
The afternoon sun hitting the concrete of Walnut Street didn’t have any warmth to it. It was a flat, blinding glare bouncing off warehouse glass and the brushed steel of luxury sedans.
Inside the main room of the Halpern Gallery, the air felt exactly the way it always had—controlled, polished, expensive. White walls. Track lighting. Clean lines, sharp enough to cut yourself on.
For six years, Izzy had loved it.
Now it felt cold.
She stood in the center of her old office, taping the bottom of another wardrobe box, the harsh shrr—clack of the dispenser echoing through the mostly empty gallery. Around her, pieces of her life sat stacked in careful rows—reference books, portfolios, framed sketches, notebooks filled with years of research.
Systematically dismantled.
Marcus Halpern leaned against the edge of the glass desk with the same effortless corporate polish he’d worn every daysince she met him. Tailored charcoal trousers. Crisp white shirt. Silver at his temples styled enough to look accidental.
“You don’t have to pack the reference catalogs, Izzy,” Marcus said smoothly. “The new director is going to need the provenance files for the fall exhibition anyway.”
