Tessa’s throat tightened. “Kyle?—”
“No.” He cut her off, stepping closer, eyes hard. “Listen to me. I don’t want a girlfriend who drops in like a visitor between cases. I want a wife.”
The word hit like a slap.
“A wife who’s here,” he continued, voice rough with anger. “A wife who wants a family. Kids. Someone who actually chooses me.”
Tessa went still. “I do choose you.”
Kyle laughed, bitter. “When? Between bodies? Between briefings?”
“That is not fair?—”
“It’s reality.” His voice thinned, the control fraying. “I’m tired of being second place to your badge.”
Tessa’s eyes flashed. “My badge isn’t a hobby, Kyle. It’s my life’s work.”
“And I’m telling you,” he said, voice dropping, sharp and final, “if you want me, you stop doing this.”
Silence filled the space between them.
Tessa stared at him like she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard.
“You want me to quit,” she said slowly.
“I want you to choose,” he snapped. “Us. A real life. Not this constant emergency where you get to be the hero and I’m just… waiting.”
Tessa’s hands curled at her sides.
“You don’t get to ask me to shrink,” she said, voice shaking with anger. “You don’t get to take everything I’ve built and call it selfish because it doesn’t revolve around you.”
Kyle’s eyes narrowed. “So that’s your answer.”
Tessa swallowed hard. “My answer is I won’t give up my career to make you feel bigger.”
For a beat, Kyle looked like he might back down.
Like he might say he didn’t mean it.
Instead he nodded once, cold.
“Then I’m gone.”
He moved toward the door, duffel in hand.
Tessa didn’t follow him.
She wouldn’t beg.
But the hurt still hit, sharp and deep, because part of her had wanted him to understand.
Kyle paused with his hand on the knob, like he was offering her one last chance to save him from his own pride.
“You’ll be fine, Quinn,” he said.
Then, quieter—meaner?—
“You always land on your feet.”
