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It was a quiet, domestic scene—so simple, yet it felt like a monumental victory after the wreckage they had just barely survived.

Lily set the empty porcelain plate on the coffee table. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around her shins. She looked at the man beside her, tracing the strong, sharp lines of his profile in the dim light. The sheer weight of how close she had come to losing him pressed against her lungs, tight and overwhelming.

"I'm so sorry," Lily whispered. The words fractured the quiet room, raw and bleeding.

Jason shifted, turning his entire body toward her. The relaxed posture vanished in an instant, replaced by a fierce, undivided focus. "For what?"

"For lying by omission," she admitted, stripping away her armor until there was nothing left but the ugly, bruising truth. "For trying to carry the weight by myself and shutting you out. I was so utterly terrified of losing what we were building that I ended up detonating it instead."

He reached out. His calloused fingers gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, his touch an anchor in a raging storm. "I forgive you, Lily. But I need you to swear to me right now. No more hiding in the dark. If we're going to survive this—if we're actually going to build a life together—we have to be an impenetrable team. You cannot lock the door the second the wind starts howling."

"I promise," she swore without a single second of hesitation, her voice trembling but resolute. "I just... I let my past dictate my present. It's the real reason I kept making excuses every time you brought up driving to Galena. Why I kept dodging your parents."

Jason lowered his hand, his expression softening into a deep, bruising understanding. "You don't have to explain. I told you, I'm not going to pressure you. When you decide you're ready, just say the word. We'll take it entirely at your pace."

"But I want to meet them," she urged, her voice thick with unshed tears, desperate for him to feel the depth of her paralyzing fear. "I really do, Jason. When my engagement blew up in London, I didn't just lose the man I thought I was going to marry. I lost his family. I had fallen completely in love with them, and overnight, they were just erased from my life. The collateral damage gutted me."

She swallowed hard, her chest caving in at the memory. "The thought of walking into your parents' house, falling in love with them, and then losing it all if we didn't survive... it terrified me. I couldn't survive losing another family. It would break me permanently."

Jason’s dark eyes clouded with a profound, gut-wrenching ache. He shifted closer, pulling her against his side.

Lily rested her cheek against the hard plane of his bare chest, listening to the steady, thundering drum of his heartbeat. "I love hearing you talk about them. I feel like I know them already. I know your dad brings your mom a cup of Earl Grey tea every single day at the exact same time while she's working in her sewing room."

A watery, bittersweet smile touched her lips, a quiet laugh escaping her throat as she looked up at him. "And your sister... she sounds like an absolute force of nature. I still laugh thinking about that audio message she sent you last month, asking if your grandmother would douse her in holy water if she shaved her head."

Jason let out a deep, rumbling laugh that vibrated against her cheek. "She's an absolute menace. But they are going to adore you, Lily. My mom is going to take one look at you and start planning Sunday dinners for the next five years."

The humor faded slowly, leaving a heavy, necessary gravity in its wake. Jason took both of her hands in his, tracing the delicate bones of her knuckles with his thumb. His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking as he forced himself to look at his own ugly reflection.

"I made massive mistakes too, Lily," Jason rasped, his voice like crushed gravel scraping over the quiet of the room. "I build houses for a living. I reinforce fractured foundations, I fix things when they break. But the very second I saw a crack in us, I didn't reach for my tools. I dropped them and walked right off the job site."

"You were bleeding," Lily pointed out gently, squeezing his hands. "You felt betrayed. You had every right to be furious."

"Being furious is fine," Jason countered, his gaze burning fiercely into hers, refusing absolution. "But abandoning you was a coward's move. I let my wounded pride drive the truck. I should have stayed in your apartment. I should have demanded you look me in the eye and explain. I asked you to be all in, but the second I felt the ground shake, I packed up my ego and bolted. I am so damn sorry for that."

"We both made mistakes," Lily whispered, the last lingering ghosts of their fight dissolving into the midnight air. She accepted his apology with the same absolute grace he had given hers.

"From now on, we put every single card on the table," Jason vowed, a fierce, unwavering promise burning in his gaze. He pulled her hands to his mouth, pressing a desperate, reverent kiss to her knuckles. "No more running. No more holding back to protect ourselves. We stay in the room, and we fight our way through it, no matter how ugly or exhausting it gets."

"No running," Lily agreed, a profound, soul-deep relief anchoring her bones. "We do this together.

Chapter Twenty

Lily

Jason pulled his truck to the curb outside Bennett & Mendoza. Lily unbuckled her seatbelt, but before she could reach for the door handle, Jason caught her hand, gently pulling her back across the center console.

"Leaving already?" he teased, a playful glint in his dark eyes.

"Some of us have advertising campaigns to run," she joked, tracing his jawline with her thumb.

"Call in sick," he murmured, leaning in until his breath brushed her cheek. "Let's go back to my place. I'll make you another grilled cheese."

Lily laughed, a bright, bubbly sound that filled the cab of the truck. "As tempting as that is, I have meetings."

"Tonight, then," he compromised, pressing his lips to hers in a lingering, joyful goodbye. "I'm cooking."

"It's a date," she whispered.