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The truth is simpler and uglier and much easier to drive on.

I love her. I want her.

And if the contract is gone, if Alester has actually let go of the one thing he used to keep us apart, then I am done helping him by leaving for him.

The drive back feels shorter.

That’s probably reckless. I don’t care.

By the time I get to Maggie’s building, my pulse has gone from erratic to something more transparent. Decision does that. It removes the luxury of confusion.

I park quickly and take the stairs two at a time because waiting for the elevator feels like an insult.

When she opens the door, she’s barefoot, hair loose, wearing one of those huge old T-shirts that tell me she wasn’t expecting anyone important.

She sees me and stops. She just goes very still, hand still on the doorknob, face emptied out with surprise.

I don’t give either of us time to ruin it.

“Petra texted me,” I say. “He canceled it.”

She blinks once. Then again.

“What?”

“The arrangement. It’s over.”

I can see the words hitting her one by one. Canceled. Over. The world shifting under her feet again, only this time not in the direction of control.

“He—” She stops. Starts over. “He told me he would think about it. I didn’t know he⁠—”

“It doesn’t matter.” I step closer. “What matters is I’m here now.”

Her face changes. I keep going because if I stop now, she’ll say something careful and reasonable and I’ve had enough of both for one lifetime.

“I packed. I got in the car. I ignored your calls because I told myself it was the right thing, the decent thing, the less selfish thing.” I laugh once, breathless and angry at myself. “Then Petra told me he’d canceled it, and all I could think was that if I still got on that plane after that, I’d be choosing cowardice, not sacrifice.”

She’s staring at me now, eyes too wide, mouth slightly parted.

I take the last step and crowd her gently back into the doorway. “I love you,” I say. “I’m in love with you. I’ve been trying to leave before that matters more than sense, and it already does. I don’t want a life that doesn’t have you in it.”

That gets to her. I see it.

The tears come first, but they don’t fall. They just gather there and make everything in her face look softer and less defended.

“Dalton,” she says, and my name sounds like relief.

I touch her face with both hands. “You called me,” I say.

“You didn’t answer.”

“I know.”

“I hated you.”

“That’s fair.”

“I still kind of hate you.”