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She doesn't move. Her eyes are wet.

"You told me it can't happen again. And I said copy that because that's what I do. I make it clean. I file it away. I put the walls up and go back to the perimeter." My hands are shaking. I've been shot at, I've cleared buildings in combat zones, and I have never been this scared. "But I don't want to be clean about you, Sloane. I don't want to file you away."

"Dante..."

"I'm in love with you." The words come out simple. Undecorated. True. "I've known you for three days. I know that's insane. I know it doesn't make sense. But I love the way you organize a crisis. I love that you cited a September email with a timestamp. I love that you organized your cousin's baby shower at sixteen for two hundred dollars and came in eleven under budget. I love that you cried over a cup of coffee because somebody remembered yours went cold."

A tear tracks down her cheek. She doesn't wipe it.

"Take the contract. Build something incredible here. And let me be the man who shows up for you while you do it. Because my abuela was right. The bravest thing a man can do is stay."

Silence. The fire pit is dark, just ash and memory. Wind moves through the pines. Somewhere up the trail, a bird calls twice into the cold morning.

Then she crosses the distance between us. Three steps, maybe four. Her hands go to my face, palms against my jaw, fingers in my hair. She pulls me down to her mouth.

The kiss tastes like salt and cold mountain air. Her body presses against mine, warm through the sweater, her curves fitting against me in a way that makes my arms lock around her waist without conscious thought. She kisses me with everything. Anger, relief, want, fear, all of it pouring through her lips into mine.

"I love you," she says against my mouth. "I love you, and I'm terrified, and if you say copy that, I will end you."

A laugh breaks out of me. Genuine, full, the kind that starts in your chest and takes your whole body with it. She's laughing too, crying and laughing at the same time, her forehead against mine, both of us standing in the ashes of a bonfire at eight in the morning with the entire Autumn Harvest weekend stacked around us.

"No copy that." My thumbs wipe the tears from her cheeks. "Just this. Just you. For as long as you want me."

"That might be a very long time."

"Good. I'm patient." I kiss her forehead. Her nose. The corner of her mouth. "Stay in Crimson Hollow. Take Noah's contract. Let me take you to dinner tonight after teardown. A real dinner. Off site. No clipboard."

"I don't know how to eat dinner without a clipboard."

"We'll figure it out."

Her arms tighten around my neck. She buries her face in my chest, and the sound she makes is small, muffled, something between a sob and a laugh. My arms wrap around her. Hold her. Stay.

Behind us, the setup crew starts arriving for the closing ceremony. Someone sees us and wolf whistles from the parking area. Rivera's voice crackles in the earpiece I left hanging from my collar: "Called it."

Sloane pulls back, wiping her eyes, laughing. "Your entire team knows?"

"Rivera has a big mouth."

"Rivera is getting a bonus."

She kisses me again, quick, smiling, then picks up her clipboard from the ground. Dusts it off. Tucks it under her arm. "I have a closing ceremony to run."

"And I have a perimeter to secure."

"So we're still doing this?" She gestures between us. "Working together?"

"We've been working together for three days. We're good at it."

That smile. The real one. Wide, open, no professional filter. It transforms her whole face, lights up her dark eyes, shows me the woman I fell in love with at a bonfire when she was too tired to pretend she was fine.

"Eight o'clock. Dinner. You pick the restaurant."

"I know a place." I'm already thinking about the Italian spot in town. Paolo's. Quiet corner booth. Candles. The kind of place where a man brings a woman when he's serious.

She walks toward the venue. Clipboard out. Phone buzzing. Already back in event mode, already handling the next crisis, already being the woman who makes everything look effortless.

But she looks over her shoulder once. Just once. Catches my eye. Smiles.