His hand stills, but his eyes stay locked on mine.
“New York is where I lost my mom.” I exhale slowly. “Every street corner holds a memory. The good ones hurt. The bad ones, like how my dad still lives in the house I grew up in—they’re harder. I’m tired of pretending I’m fine.”
Knox moves a little closer, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Cami, baby,” he says, tone laced with something deeper. “Grief doesn’t follow rules. It shows up uninvited. When you least expect it. And sometimes, the places that broke you are the ones that teach you what you’re made of.” He exhales, eyes never leaving mine. “It’s okay to have memories of your mom. Those keep her alive in your heart.”
I close my eyes for a beat, his words coating my chest like warmth chasing out a chill.
No one ever really says that. Not without attaching a list of things I should’ve done by now: moved on, let go, focused forward.
But Knox doesn’t suggest I do any of that. He doesn’t flinch at my hurt or try to fix it. He just stays right here, listening, ears wide open, tone gentle, reminding me that love doesn’t disappear because someone’s gone.
It lingers.
It echoes.
It holds space. Even in the parts I’ve tried to lock away.
Breathing him in, I steady myself against the tenderness curling in my belly.
“What about you and the penthouse?” I ask, eyes lifting to search his face. “Tonight, you mentioned it doesn’t feel like home anymore.”
A beat passes, and his onyx gaze deepens.
“I bought it with my dad’s life insurance.” His throat bobs. “I was twenty-two. Grieving. Angry. And stupid enough to think a penthouse could fill the hole he left.”
My fingers drift across the curve of his pec, circling right above his heart, the muscle taut beneath my touch, his gaze softer, open now. It’s as if he’s letting me feel the parts he usually keeps guarded.
“Then,” he goes on, “I married Jenna, and at some point, it became her space. Notours. Her furniture. Her parties. Her rules. That house stopped being mine a long time ago. Maybe it never really was.”
I search his eyes for doubt. Regret. But all I find is quiet sincerity as though he’s handing me the most vulnerable part of himself and hoping I won’t drop it.
“Not sure I’ll sell it,” he says. “But I sure as heck don’t want to go back there anytime soon. Being here…well, it’s the first time I’ve breathed without feeling like I’m failing.”
Throat tightening, I cup his face with my hand. “Knox…”
He catches my hand in his, presses a kiss to my knuckles. “We don’t need to have answers yet. About New York. About Stripe and Shadow. Even aboutus. All I know is I feel more like myself in this house, this room, this bed, this bubble—you and me—than I ever did in that high-rise glass box in Manhattan.”
My heart jumps. He saysyou and melike it’s a declaration. Damnthese rules. I already know I’ll miss what we’ve started even before it’s over.
“I’m scared of how this is going to feel when it ends,” I whisper.
Knox doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak.
He gathers me closer, brushing a kiss beneath the hollow of my eye, then my jaw, and finally my mouth with a hunger that says we’re nowhere near finished making love.
And somewhere between his steady breath and the flutter in my chest, I stop bracing for the fall.
CHAPTER 22
Knox
She’s still asleep.
And curled into me, back pressed to my chest, me breathing in her lavender-scented hair, her breathing soft and slow against my arm.
We’re tucked so close, so natural, which makes it too damn easy to imagine a version of life where this is oureverymorning.
