Page 60 of Shattered

“And I need to talk to Jake. Tomorrow. I need to end things properly.”

“I know.”

“I’m choosing you,” she repeated. Like she needed to say it again. Like she needed me to understand. “But I need to do this right. Need to close that door myself.”

“I understand.”

“You’re not upset?”

“That you want to handle things properly with your ex-fiancé? No, Delia, I’m not upset.” I brushed hair out of her face because I could now. Because she’d kissed me. Because seventeen years of careful distance had just evaporated in a parking lot. “I’m just trying to process that this is actually happening.”

“How long?” she asked suddenly.

“How long what?”

“How long have you felt this way?”

I thought about lying. About deflecting. Then decided I was done with that.

“A long time,” I said simply. “Long enough that I built my life around it.”

Her eyes got bright again. “That’s the most romantic and most depressing thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Sorry?”

“Don’t apologize.” She kissed me again. Quick. Sweet. Like she couldn’t help herself. “I’m done making you wait.”

“Good.” I pulled her closer because my brain was finally catching up with reality and reality was that Delia Santoro had just kissed me and said she was choosing me and I was allowed to hold her now. “Because I’m terrible at waiting.”

She laughed against my chest. “Liar. You’re excellent at waiting.”

“Not anymore.”

We stood there in the parking lot while the sun set and I tried to memorize everything about this moment. The way she fit against me. The sound of her breathing. The impossible reality that she’d chosen me.

“We should go,” she said finally. “People are staring.”

I looked around. An elderly couple was indeed watching us from near the entrance, smiling in that indulgent way people smiled at young couples.

“Let them stare,” I said.

“Axel Irving, are you enjoying public displays of affection?”

“I’m enjoying you.”

Her face went pink. “That’s cheesy.”

“You kissed me first.”

“I had a moment of courage.”

“Have another one.”

She did. Kissed me again right there with witnesses and fading sunlight and seventeen years of waiting finally, impossibly over.

When we broke apart this time, I was definitely smiling. Actually smiling in a way that felt foreign and perfect and terrifying.

“There it is,” Delia said softly. “Mark’s going to be so smug.”