The last of the well-wishers had drifted away, their congratulations echoing in the quiet space of Chloe’s apartment above the shop. The scent of champagne and sugar still lingered in the air, a phantom of the celebration downstairs. Everything was a success. The cash register had sung its happy tune all night, the shelves were already looking lovingly depleted, and the town had wrapped its arms around “The Next Chapter” as if welcoming home a long-lost friend.
It should have felt like a victory. Instead, it felt like the end of a breath she’d been holding for months, and the air she was finally drawing in was foreign and thin.
Bennett loosened his tie, the silk whispering as he pulled it free. He set his empty champagne flute on her small kitchen counter with a proprietary click. “Well, that’s that,” he said, his voice smooth with satisfaction. “You’ve had your little adventure, darling. I have to admit, you pulled it off. Now we can finally pack this place up and get back to our real life.”
Chloe watched him, her heart a slow, heavy drum in her chest. Our real life. The words landed like stones. His real life was a high-rise in the city, boardrooms, and cocktail parties where people networked instead of talked. For the past five years, she’d tried to convince herself it was her real life, too. A supporting role in the grand production of Bennett Carmichael.
But her real life was here. It was the scent of old paper and new paint. It was the creak of the floorboards under her feet. It was the feel of sawdust under her fingernails and the memory of a calloused hand closing over hers, steady and sure.
“I’m not going back, Bennett,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but it filled the small apartment, erasing the phantom sounds of the party.
He turned, a small, indulgent smile on his face, the kind one gives a child who has said something amusingly naive. “Don’t be dramatic, Chloe. The store can run with a manager. We’ll visit on weekends. It’ll be our charming little country getaway.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “You don’t understand. This isn’t a getaway. This is my home.”
The smile on his face faltered, replaced by a flicker of impatience. “We’ve been over this. Your home is with me. In a place befitting our status, not… this. This was a project. A noble one, I’ll grant you. But the project is complete.”
She finally understood. To him, this whole endeavor—her fight, her passion, her soul-deep need to save this place—was just another item on a corporate checklist. Project: Save Small-Town Bookstore. Status: Complete. Next item on the agenda: The Carmichael-Hayes Merger.
With a strange sense of detachment, Chloe held up her left hand. The diamond, a two-carat monster he’d presented with the same triumphant air he’d used tonight, caught the light and splintered it into a thousand cold, perfect pieces. It was beautiful. It was flawless. It was a cage.
She slid it off her finger. The skin underneath was pale and indented, a ghost of the promise she’d once thought she wanted. She walked to the small oak side table and placed the ring on its surface. The sound it made—a soft, definitive clink—was the loudest thing she had ever heard.
Bennett stared at the ring, then back at her, his face a mask of disbelief. “What in God’s name are you doing?”
“I’m choosing my life,” she said, the words finally feeling true on her tongue. “And you’re not in it. Not in the way you want to be.”
“This is insane,” he scoffed, his voice rising. “This is about him, isn’t it? That… carpenter. The one who looks at you like you’re a piece of property he has a claim on.”
“No,” she corrected him calmly. “He looks at me like he actually sees me. And this isn’t about him. Not entirely. This is about me. The woman you want to marry doesn’t exist anymore, Bennett. Maybe she never did. I think she was just a story I was telling myself. You want a partner who will host your dinners and charm your clients. I want to sell books to kids and argue about whether a semicolon is pretentious. We don’t just want different things; we want different worlds.”
His face hardened, the charming facade cracking to reveal the cold, hard ambition beneath. “So you’re throwing it all away? The life I can give you? For what? A dusty little shop in a town that time forgot?”
“I’m not throwing anything away,” she said, a well of strength rising inside her. “I’m finally holding on to the one thing that matters. Myself.”
He stared at her for a long, silent moment, his jaw tight. He was calculating, reassessing. He wasn’t seeing a heartbroken woman; he was seeing a failed investment.
“Fine,” he said, his voice clipped and utterly devoid of emotion. “Keep the ring. Consider it severance.”
He snatched his jacket from the back of a chair and walked to the door without a backward glance. The door clicked shut behind him, and the silence he left in his wake wasn’t empty. It was full. Full of possibility. Full of air. Full of her.
Chloe stood there for a full minute, breathing. Then, a new feeling crashed over her—not relief, but a gut-twisting, heart-stopping panic.
Liam.
He hadn’t been there tonight. He’d finished the last of the shelving two days ago, his movements efficient, his face an unreadable mask of polite professionalism. He had wished her luck, his green eyes holding a galaxy of pain he thought he was hiding, and walked away.
She had to tell him. He had to know. The misunderstanding—the one she had let fester for weeks—was a chasm between them.
She didn’t grab a coat. She didn’t even stop to change out of her simple black dress. She flew down the stairs, out the back door of the shop, and ran. The cool night air hit her bare arms as she sprinted down the quiet Main Street, past the darkened storefronts and the solitary traffic light blinking yellow into the darkness.
His workshop was on the edge of town, a large, barn-like structure set back from the road. Light spilled from the high windows, a beacon in the night. Her breath hitched in her throat, part relief, part terror. He was there. But why, so late on a Friday?
She pushed open the heavy door, the familiar scent of sawdust, steel, and motor oil washing over her. The scene inside made her blood run cold.
Liam was in the center of the cavernous space, his back to her. His workshop, normally a chaotic symphony of projects in various states of completion, was unnervingly tidy. Tools weren’t scattered on benches; they were cleaned and being placed, one by one, into padded slots inside large, industrial-looking crates.
He was packing. He was leaving.
“Liam,” she breathed out, her voice thin and desperate.
He froze, his hand hovering over a set of chisels. He turned around slowly. His face was etched with exhaustion, his eyes shadowed with a weary resignation that shattered her heart.
“Chloe,” he said, his voice flat. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”
“I am,” she said, walking toward him, her steps hesitant. “No. I’m not. I don’t know what I’m doing. Liam, what is all this?” She gestured to the crates, her hand trembling.
“It’s a job,” he said, turning back to his tools, his movements stiff. “In Oregon. Foreman on a big timber-framing project. I leave Monday.”
“No.” The word was a punch to the gut. “No, you can’t.”
He finally looked at her, a bitter, humorless smile touching his lips. “Why can’t I? There’s nothing for me here anymore, Chloe.”
Tears pricked her eyes, hot and sharp. “That’s not true. That’s not true and you know it.”
“Do I?” he challenged, his voice cracking with the pain he’d held back for so long. “I watched the man you’re going to marry stand by your side tonight. I’ve spent the last three months pouring my heart into this project, into your project, just to get a front-row seat to the life you chose. I’m done.”
She closed the distance between them until she was standing right in front of him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. She reached out, not to touch him, but as if to hold the very air between them still.
“I ended it,” she said, her voice shaking but clear. “It’s over. Bennett is gone.”
He stared at her, his expression unmoving, his jaw a hard line of disbelief. “Don’t, Chloe. Don’t do that. Don’t break his heart and run here for a quick fix because you feel guilty.”
“It’s not guilt!” she cried, the words tearing from her throat. “It’s clarity. Liam, listen to me. Please. When I left ten years ago, I thought I was running toward a bigger life. But I was just running away from myself. And somewhere along the way, I forgot who that girl was. The girl who loved the smell of old books and wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes locked on his. “Coming back here, saving the store… it was never about the building. It was about finding her again. And you… you were there every step of the way, reminding me. With every board you cut, every nail you hammered, it felt like you were rebuilding me, too.”
His guarded expression began to crack, a flicker of something raw and vulnerable showing in his eyes.
“The life I want,” she whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears, “it’s not in a skyscraper in the city. It’s here. In this town. It’s the quiet satisfaction of a hard day’s work. It’s the hope tucked inside the cover of a new book. It’s… it’s with you, Liam. It’s always been with you, hiding between the lines of the story we started a decade ago and were too scared to finish.”
She laid her heart bare in the sawdust-filled air of his workshop. “I love you. I am so deeply, completely in love with you, and I was a fool to ever let you go. Please… don’t go to Oregon. Stay. Stay and finish our story with me.”
He just stood there, his powerful frame utterly still. His green eyes searched hers, digging past the words, past the tears, searching for the truth he’d been starving for. The air crackled with ten years of unspoken feelings, of regret and longing and the fragile, terrifying hope of a second chance. He looked from her eyes to her lips and back again, his breath catching in his throat.
And then, he whispered her name, his voice rough with a decade of heartache and a single, stunning moment of belief.
“Chloe?”