“And I need you to know I don’t have expectations. I’m not trying to complicate our partnership or our friendship, but I can’t keep pretending I don’t feel it.” Victoria’s heart hammered. “Feel what? This? You. Us.” He turned to face her. Somewhere between saving your life and building a business together and watching you love my daughter, I fell for you.

Not the CEO version or the controlled public version, but the real you. The one who cried over Maya’s drawings and admitted to being scared and learned to delegate because it was braver than doing everything alone. Ethan, let me finish. I know it’s complicated. I know we have a business partnership to consider. I know I come with a lot of baggage.

a daughter, a dead wife’s memory, more trauma than any relationship should reasonably have to carry. But I also know that for the first time since Sarah died, I want to try. I want to see if maybe this thing between us could be something more than friendship. Victoria felt like she was standing on the edge of the same cliff she’d faced in the hospital parking lot, fear and possibility waring for dominance.

Every instinct she’d honed over a decade screamed at her to protect herself, to maintain distance, to avoid the risk of needing someone who could leave. But she’d learned something in the months since that rainy night. Fear was a liar. Safety wasn’t the same as isolation. And sometimes the bravest thing you could do was choose connection despite the terror. I’m scared, she said.

Honestly, I don’t know how to do this. relationships, vulnerability, trusting someone with my heart. I’ve spent so long protecting myself that I don’t know how to stop. I’m scared, too. Terrified, actually. But I’m also tired of letting fear make my decisions. Ethan took her hand, his calloused fingers gentle. We don’t have to figure it all out tonight.

We can take it slow, see what develops, give ourselves permission to be uncertain and messy and human. What about Maya? If this doesn’t work out, Maya already loves you. That won’t change regardless of what happens between us. She’ll still be part of your life because you’re part of ours now in whatever form that takes. He paused.

But I think it will work out. I think we’ve both been moving toward this since the moment I refused to let you die in that parking lot. Victoria thought about the past months, about how thoroughly these two people had infiltrated her carefully controlled life. Maya’s drawings on her refrigerator, Ethan’s number at the top of her favorites, the way her house had slowly transformed from a showplace into something approaching a home.

The realization that she looked forward to their time together more than any business success. “Okay,” she said softly. “Let’s try slowly, carefully, with full acknowledgement that we’re both disasters who have no idea what we’re doing.” Best offer I’ve had in years,” Ethan said and kissed her. It was gentle and tentative and absolutely terrifying in the best possible way.

Victoria felt tears slide down her cheeks. Happy tears. Overwhelmed tears. Tears that came from finally letting someone past walls she’d spent a lifetime constructing. When they pulled apart, Ethan brushed the tears away with his thumb. “You okay?” “More than okay. Terrified and happy and so far outside my comfort zone.

I can’t even see it from here. But but okay. She laughed shakily. Maya’s going to be insufferable about this, isn’t she? Absolutely. She’s been not so subtly suggesting we should date like in movies for weeks now. I suspect she’s been planning this longer than either of us. They walked back to the car hand in hand, and Victoria marveled at how such a simple gesture could feel so significant.

She’d negotiated million-dollar deals with less nervousness than she felt holding Ethan’s hand, but also with considerably less joy. The next morning, Maya took one look at them arriving together to pick her up for their usual Saturday breakfast and announced, “Finally, I was starting to think I’d have to do everything myself.

” “Oh, really?” Ethan said, trying to sound stern and failing completely. “And what exactly have you been planning?” just encouraging things along, making sure you spent time together, leaving you alone when you needed to talk. I’m very subtle.” Maya said this with the utter confidence of someone who had never been subtle a day in her life. Victoria laughed.

How long have you been scheming? Since the cookies. When dad came home after the first time we visited you and he had that look. What look? Ethan asked. the happy, confused look, like he didn’t know he could feel that way anymore, but also didn’t know what to do about it. Maya shrugged. Mom used to talk about you having that look when you first met her. I recognized it from pictures.

The reference to Sarah could have been awkward, but somehow it wasn’t. It felt right, like Sarah’s memory was blessing this new beginning rather than haunting it. Over the following months, they navigated their new relationship with the same careful attention they’d brought to the garage renovation. Some days were easy, filled with laughter and connection and the simple pleasure of being together.

Other days were hard when grief or fear or old patterns threatened to pull them back into isolation. Victoria learned to let Ethan see her at her worst. When work stress overwhelmed her, when old traumas surfaced, when her instinct was to run rather than stay, Ethan learned to trust that Victoria wouldn’t disappear.

that her commitment was real even when things got difficult, that loving someone new didn’t diminish what he’d had with Sarah. Maya navigated the changes with remarkable grace, though she established ground rules early on. If you’re going to be together together, she’d announced seriously, you have to promise not to be gross about it in front of me.

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