"It is past tense. You ended it."
"Because you kidnapped someone!"
"And I have learned from that mistake." He hefts the bag higher on his shoulder. "I have found a new location for the butcher shop. Across the city. Far enough that you will not have to hear the bone saw. Far enough that my presence will not disrupt your peace. You will keep your bakery. Your pastel aesthetic. Your quiet mornings. Everything will return to exactly how it was before I arrived."
I acknowledge him, my entire world tilting violently sideways.
He's leaving.
He's actually leaving.
Not because he wants to. Not because he stopped caring.
Because he thinks it's what I want.
CHAPTER 18
LANEK
The tears hit without warning, hot and humiliating, spilling down my cheeks faster than I can blink them back. My breath comes in sharp, broken gasps that sound pathetic even to my own ears, and I press both hands over my mouth to try to hold back the sob building.
It doesn't work.
The sound that tears out of me is ugly and raw, the kind of crying that makes my shoulders shake and my nose run and completely destroys any shred of dignity I walked in here with.
"Don't leave."
The words come out muffled against my palms, thick with tears and desperation.
"Quinn—"
"Please don't leave." I drop my hands, letting him see the full wreckage of my composure, the tears streaming freely down my face, the way my body trembles with the effort of holding myself together. "Please. I was wrong. I was so wrong to push you away like that. I was scared and I panicked and I said things I didn't mean because I didn't know how to handle what I was feeling and I'm so sorry, Lanek, I'm so sorry?—"
The duffel bag hits the floor with a thunderous crash that makes the entire room shake.
Before I can even process the sound, he's moving, closing the distance between us in two massive strides, and then his hands are on me, cupping my face with a gentleness that seems impossible given the sheer size of him.
"Stop crying."
"I can't." Another sob hitches through me, making my voice break. "You're leaving and it's my fault and I ruined everything and I don't know how to fix it?—"
"You are not ruined." His thumbs swipe across my cheekbones, catching tears that just keep falling. "We are not ruined. Breathe, little baker."
I try. I manage a single shaky inhale before another wave of tears hits, and I fist my hands in the front of his shirt like I can physically hold him here through sheer force of will.
"I don't want you to go."
"Then I will not go."
The simple statement stops me cold. I pull back just enough to look up at him, vision blurred, searching his face for any sign that he's just saying what I want to hear.
"You mean it?"
"I have never lied to you. If you want me to stay, I stay. If you want me to leave, I leave. If you want me to stand in this exact spot for the next forty years and never move, I will do that too. You are my mate, Quinn. That does not change because we had a fight. That does not change because I made mistakes. I am yours. Completely. In whatever form you need me."
A fresh wave of tears spills over, but these feel different, lighter somehow, like something breaking open inside my chest instead of breaking apart.
"I need you here." The words come easier now, steadier. "I need you next door. I need to hear the bone saw at five in themorning and find mysterious cuts of meat on my doorstep and watch you terrorize food critics. I need all of it. All of you. Even the parts that scare me a little."
