Page 118 of Lease to Love

He'd called me his girl. To Erik.

Just like he'd called me “his woman” earlier when he was standing between me and Ayo.

Maybe it meant nothing.

Maybe it was just the easiest word in the moment.

But sitting there in Roman's living room, surrounded by photographs of the people and places that had shaped him, I couldn't stop wondering if maybe it meant exactly what I was afraid it meant.

Chapter Fifteen

Roman

I didn't get nervous.

Growing up in Brooklyn, building a company from nothing, surviving the kind of business negotiations where grown men twice my age tried to intimidate me across polished conference tables—none of that had left much room for nerves.

You learned early how to keep your breathing steady, your face neutral, and your mouth shut until you knew exactly what you wanted to say.

But right now, I was nervous as hell.

I was driving to Elise Langston's brownstone for the meeting I'd been trying to secure for years, and my hands were steady on the wheel, my posture relaxed, my expression probably as unreadable as ever. Internally, however, I was running through every possible version of the next hour like a man preparing for war.

The last time I'd been at this house, Summer had been beside me.

She'd made the introduction. She'd filled the silences. She'd made Ms. Langston smile when I was still trying to figure out exactly how much of her grandmotherly interrogation I was going to get.

Today, I had none of that. Just me, the proposal I'd spent years building, and the uncomfortable knowledge that the woman I wanted beside me wasn't speaking to me much anymore.

Not really.

Her last text sat in my phone.

Sunshine : Good luck today

Three words.

Three fucking words, and an emoji.

For Summer, that was practically a hostage negotiation.

I stared at the message at the next red light, then locked my phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat. The woman had once sent me seven consecutive texts because she'd seen a squirrel wearing a tiny sweater on TikTok. Now I was getting three words and a heart.

That told me everything I needed to know.

The night at my house had changed something.

I knew it had.

She'd asked me what we were doing, and I'd been about to answer when Erik barged through the door like an asshole.

After Summer put her clothes back on, and after I choked Erik’s ass into giving my key back, we recovered. We ordered food. We watched a movie while Erik and Summer spent most of it talking over the dialogue and roasting me for the crime of asking them to shut the hell up.

She'd curled into my side like she always did.

But we never finished that conversation.

"We live ten blocks apart and pretend none of this happened?"