Three dots appeared as she typed a response, disappeared, and appeared again. The vulnerability of those blinking dots sent a surge of something dangerously close to hope through me.
OK.
One word. Two letters. The tiniest concession. But it was enough.
When she emerged—hair loosely gathered at her nape, wearing jeans and a simple green sweater that made her eyes look impossibly bright—something primitive and possessive uncoiled inside me.
Mine, it insisted.
Not New York's.
Not some other life's.
Mine.
I stepped out of the car, moving to the passenger side to open her door.
The gesture wasn't courtesy—it was control, establishing from the outset that this encounter would proceed on my terms.
"Lucas." Her voice was steady, betraying none of the emotion I could see in her eyes.
"I wasn't expecting to hear from you again."
"Clearly." I held the door, watching as she hesitated before sliding onto the leather seat.
"That was your mistake."
I closed the door with deliberate precision and reclaimed my position behind the wheel.
For a moment, I simply looked at her, cataloging the shadows beneath her eyes, the slight pallor to her usually vibrant complexion, the tension in her shoulders.
Good.
Let her feel the cost of what she'd tried to discard.
"Where are we going?" she asked, fastening her seatbelt as I pulled away from the curb.
"Does it matter?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"You know it does."
I drove in silence for several blocks, the carefully prepared arguments seeming hollow now, insufficient for the weight of what was at stake.
"You're not going to New York," I finally said, the words emerging with quiet intensity as I steered onto the highway.
She stiffened.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." I accelerated, the powerful engine responding instantly.
"You're not taking that job. You're not leaving San Francisco. You're not walking away from us."
"And you think you get to decide that?" Her voice held a dangerous edge. "You think you can just command me to stay?"
"No." I glanced at her, allowing her to see what I'd kept carefully hidden the day before—the raw need beneath the composed exterior.
