I bought the companies that were going to hire her.
I bought her parents' mortgage and their medical debt and every opportunity in a fifty-mile radius.
I didn't do it to hurt her. I did it to keep her close.
By the time she realizes what I've done, there won't be anywhere left to run. There'll only be me, opening my arms, offering her the only door she has left.
She'll hate me for it. At first.
But eventually, she'll understand. She'll see that everything I've done, I've done because I love her.
Because I've always loved her.
Because the moment I saw her, something in me recognized something in her, and I knew—I knew—we were supposed to be together.
She'll fight. I'm counting on it.
But in the end, she'll surrender. They always do.
I stand, straighten my cuffs, and cross back to the window.
The guest house glows with warm light now.
She's in there, unpacking, trying to convince herself she's being paranoid.
Trying to convince herself the man watching from the window is just her best friend's brother, just someone she used to know, just a ghost from a past she's outgrown.
She's wrong.
I press my hand to the glass again. It's cold against my palm, but inside I'm burning.
Years of photographs and reports and secondhand accounts.
Years of lying awake at night, imagining her face, her voice, the way she'd feel beneath me when I finally claimed her.
She's fifty yards away now. Close enough to touch.
And I will touch her. Soon.
I'll take my time. Peel back her defenses one by one.
Remind her what it felt like when I held her wrist in the garden, when my breath ghosted across her ear, when her body betrayed her and leaned into mine.
She wants me. She's always wanted me. She's just been too scared to admit it.
But fear fades. Resistance crumbles. And when she finally stops running, when she finally lets herself feel what's been burning between us for a decade?—
She'll realize she was never running from me.
She was running toward me.
It just took her a little while to find her way home.
I watch her shadow move across the window of the guest house, and I smile.
Welcome back, Liberty.
I've missed you.
