For the first time, there was no plan. No schedule.
No next step dictated by obligation or expectation. There was only a choice
I could try to rebuild the same fortress, brick by painstaking brick, and spend the rest of my life guarding against another breach. I could retreat back into the safety of muted colors, predictable days, and a heart kept under lock and key.
Or I could walk out into the chaos.
I could choose the life that terrified me, the one with no guarantees, the one painted in vibrant, clashing colors. The one where I might get burned but could also, finally, feel warm. A life of passion, of risk. A life with Rhys.
The choice wasn’t between Marcus and Rhys anymore. It was between the woman I had forced myself to be and the woman I was terrified I might actually be.
My gaze fell on the laptop again. I walked over, my steps deliberate now, sure-footed.
I opened it, the screen blinking back to life. I stared at the wedding timeline, at all the perfect, black-and-white little boxes. My life’s work. My cage.
My finger hovered over the delete key.
I thought of Rhys’s smile, the way it crinkled the corners of his eyes. I thought of his hands, big and capable, and the way they felt tangled in my hair. I thought of the way he looked at me, not as a planner, but as a woman. Complicated, contradictory, and, for a few stolen moments, completely his.
I pressed down.
Are you sure you want to permanently delete the file “Thorne-Wexler Master”?
A small, watery smile touched my lips. I took a deep, shuddering breath, the first one that didn’t feel like a struggle.
I clicked yes.