Page 128 of Neap & Spring

He pulls me closer, his free hand coming up to cup my face. His thumb brushes across my cheekbone, and then he’s leaning in, and I’m meeting him halfway.

The kiss is gentle. Nothing like the desperate, hungry thing in the kitchen. When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against mine, both of us breathing in the same small space.

“Thank you,” he mutters. “For everything you’ve been doing for us.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know this won’t erase the debt.” His voice is rough and emotional in a way I rarely hear from him, and it brings tears to my eyes. “I know we’re still drowning financially. But what you’ve done — the attention, this event, the way you’ve made people care about this place again.” He blows out a breath, his hand tightening slightly on mine. “You’ve given me something I didn’t think I’d get back.”

“What’s that?” I whisper.

“Passion.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, and his eyes are bright in the streetlight, shining with something that looks dangerously close to tears of his own. “I’ve been cooking on autopilot for two years. Just surviving and trying to get through one more service while also trying not to lose everything. But watching you work and care this much about something that isn’t even yours — it reminded me why I started doing this in the first place. You made me want to cook again. Really cook. Not to just pay bills or keep the lights on, but because it matters and because it’s beautiful. And because …” His voice cracks slightly. “Because I love it. I’d forgotten that. And you reminded me.”

My throat is so tight I can barely breathe. Tears are definitely pricking at the corners of my eyes now, and I’m fighting to keep them from falling.

“And I don’t know how to thank you enough for that,” he continues, his thumb still moving against my cheek, catching a tear I didn’t realize had fallen. “I don’t know if I ever can.”

I reach up and cup his face with both hands, feeling the scrape of stubble under my palms and the warmth of his skin. “You don’t have to thank me. This” — I gesture vaguely back toward the restaurant — “this is what I do. It’s my job.”

“It’s more than that and you know it.”

He’s right. It is more than that. It’s been more than that since the moment I walked through those doors and saw him standing in his restaurant, looking exhausted and angry and so heartbreakingly familiar. It stopped being just a job the second my heart recognized him and I realized I’d never stopped caring. I never stopped wanting him and loving him, even when I was trying so hard to forget.

I know deep down we still need to have a conversation. The big one. The one where I tell him everything about New York and why I really stopped cooking. And why I disappeared off the face of the planet five years ago. I need to finally let him past all the walls I’ve built and show him the broken parts I’ve been hiding.

I know I need to tell him.

But right now, standing in this parking lot with his hands on my face and his forehead pressed to mine, I’m in this happy, perfect little bubble where I have him back. Where he’s looking at me like I matter and I’ve given him something precious. He’s looking at me like maybe we could actually make this work. And I’m terrified to pop it.

Because once I tell him the truth, once he knows everything, he might look at me differently. With pity. Or regret. Or worse, with the kind of protective anger that will make him want to fix something that can’t be fixed. He might see me as damaged and broken.

Too much work.

He definitely won’t see me as the same Vivienne he knew once upon a time. That girl was confident and whole and unafraid.

It’s breaking my heart a little, thinking about how he’ll react and knowing that this easy happiness between us has an expiration date, and that date is the moment I finally find the courage to tell him the truth.

But not tonight. I don’t need to tell him the night before the biggest event of his year. He’s already carrying so much weight.

“Yeah,” I admit quietly. “It is.”

He kisses me again, slower this time. His hands slide into my hair, tangling in the strands, tilting my head to exactly the angle he wants. I make a small sound against his mouth and feel him smile.

When we finally break apart, we’re both flushed

“I should go,” I say, but I don’t move. I slide my hands down till they are resting on his chest and I can feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat under my palms.

“I know how this goes,” he teases, his hands still in my hair. His fingers curl slightly, holding himself to me.

“Big day tomorrow.” I shift closer instead of pulling away, my forehead finding his shoulder.

“Huge day.” His arms slide down to wrap around my waist, pulling me flush against him, eliminating any space between us.

“We need to sleep.” The words come out muffled against his shirt.

“Definitely need to sleep.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head, then my temple, then the corner of my jaw, each one passionate and lingering, making it harder to think about getting in my car and actually leaving.

Neither of us moves. I tilt my head back to look at him, and he leans down to kiss me again. My fingers curl into his shirt. His hand slips under my shirt and slides up my spine, leaving heat in its wake on my bare skin. We’re swaying slightly, like we’re dancing to music only we can hear.