The silence in my apartment was a physical thing, a heavy blanket smothering the air. For two days, it had been my only companion.
I’d muted my phone, ignored the world, and tried to find the bottom of my personal freefall. The crisp, clean lines of my minimalist decor, once a source of calm, now felt like the bars of a very stylish cage.
My spreadsheets, my five-year plans, my color-coded calendars—they were all just ghosts of a woman who thought she could control the universe with enough organization. That woman was a fool.
A sharp, insistent knock rattled the heavy oak of my front door.
I flinched, my heart hammering against my ribs. *Go away. *
Whoever it was—my mother, my sister, a pitying former colleague—I didn’t have the strength to face them. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing them to leave.
The knocking came again, louder this time. Three solid thumps that vibrated through the floorboards. It wasn’t a polite inquiry. It was a demand.
There was only one person who knocked like that. Like he owned the door and everything behind it.
*Rhys. *
“Ava,” his voice was a low rumble, muffled but unmistakable. “I know you’re in there. Open the door. ”
I pressed my lips into a thin, tight line. No. I couldn’t see him. He was the epicenter of this earthquake.
The embodiment of the chaos that had ripped my carefully constructed life to shreds. Seeing him would be like inviting the hurricane back in to survey the damage.
“Ava, so help me God, I will sit on this floor until your neighbors call the cops. Don’t test me. ”
A hysterical little laugh bubbled up in my throat. Of course he would.
He was stubborn, infuriating, and utterly unwilling to play by the rules. My rules. Anyone’s rules.
I dragged myself off the sofa, my limbs feeling like lead. Each step was a surrender.
I reached the door and leaned my forehead against the cool wood, the vibrations of his next knock traveling straight through to my skull.
“What do you want, Rhys?” I asked, my voice a dry rasp.
“I want to see you. ”
“There’s nothing to see. Just a mess. You should go. ”
“I like messes,” he said, his voice softer now, closer to the door. “Let me in, sweetheart. ”
That stupid, infuriating, heart-melting endearment. It was the crack in my armor.
With a shaking hand, I twisted the deadbolt. The click was deafeningly loud in the silence.
I pulled the door open just enough to see him.
He looked… wrecked. Not in the polished, artful way he usually did, with his perfectly tousled hair and designer stubble. His hair was a mess, like he’d been running his hands through it all night. Dark circles bruised the skin under his eyes, and his jaw was tight with tension.
He wore a simple black t-shirt that stretched across his chest, and he was holding a slim leather portfolio case.
He didn’t wait for an invitation. He simply pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped inside, bringing the scent of the city, of rain and coffee and him, into my sterile sanctuary. He closed the door behind him, shutting the world out again, but this time, I wasn’t alone in the quiet.
“You look like hell,” I said, my voice flat.
“So do you,” he countered, his gaze sweeping over my crumpled pajamas and tangled hair. There was no judgment in his eyes, only a deep, aching concern that made my throat tighten. “We match. ”
He didn’t try to touch me, didn’t offer some hollow comfort. He just stood there, a solid, grounding presence in the middle of my chaos.
He walked past me to the kitchen island and set the portfolio down on the cold marble.
“I didn’t come here to tell you it’s all going to be okay,” he said, turning to face me. “That’s bullshit. It’s not okay right now. ”
I crossed my arms over my chest, a defensive shield. “Then why are you here. To say ‘I told you so’. To watch the control freak finally lose control?”
The corner of his mouth twitched, a flicker of a smile that held no humor. “No. I came to fight. ”
I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Fight who. It’s over, Rhys. I lost. My business, my reputation… it’s all gone. ”
“Bullshit,” he said again, the word a sharp crack in the air. He unzipped the portfolio and pulled out a tablet, tapping the screen to life.
He turned it to face me.
On the screen was a sleek, professionally designed webpage. My logo was at the top.
Below it were images of my most successful events—the art gallery opening with the floating floral arrangements, the tech conference that ran with military precision, the impossibly romantic wedding under a canopy of fairy lights. It was my life’s work, curated and beautiful.
“What is this?” I whispered.
“It’s your comeback,” he said, his voice intense. He started scrolling.
“I spent the last two days calling every client you’ve ever had. At least, the ones I could track down. I told them what happened. I told them a jealous rival and a bitter ex were trying to ruin you. And then I asked them to write about their experience working with you. ”
He pointed to the screen. Testimonials glowed in crisp, clean font.
“Ava Sterling is a miracle worker. She’s not just an organizer; she’s a visionary. ”
“The utmost professional. Our product launch was flawless and generated double the expected press, all thanks to Ava’s meticulous planning. ”
“She took our chaotic mess of ideas and turned it into the most beautiful day of our lives. We couldn’t have done it without her. ”
Dozens of them. Paragraph after paragraph of praise, of gratitude, of respect for my work.
My vision. My talent. Tears pricked my eyes, hot and sudden.
I hadn’t cried in forty-eight hours, and now, a website was going to be the thing that broke me.
“I… I don’t understand,” I choked out.
“It’s a counter-offensive,” he said, his eyes blazing with a fire I’d only ever seen in the dark. “The internet is a sewer, but it’s also a battlefield. You can’t let them control the narrative. So we build a new one. A better one. A true one. This is your portfolio, your proof. We launch this, send it to every industry blog, every potential client. We drown out the noise. ”
He was offering me a plan. A strategy. Not empty platitudes or a shoulder to cry on.
He was offering me a weapon. He was speaking my language, the one I had forgotten in my haze of failure. For the first time in days, a tiny sliver of light pierced the suffocating darkness.
But the question remained. “Why?” I asked, my voice barely audible. “Why would you do all this?”
He set the tablet down and finally, finally closed the distance between us. He stopped just a foot away, his heat rolling off him in waves.
“Because, Ava,” he said, his voice dropping, becoming rough with an emotion that made my breath catch. “I’m done running. ”
My heart stopped. It just… stopped.
“For my entire life,” he went on, his gaze boring into mine, “I’ve been moving. Chasing the next horizon, the next project, the next thrill. I told myself it was freedom.
But it wasn’t. It was fear. Fear of staying in one place long enough for it to mean something. Long enough for someone to mean something. ”
He took another step, and now he was close enough to touch. He lifted a hand, his calloused thumb brushing against my cheek, wiping away a tear I hadn’t even realized had fallen.
His touch was an electric shock, jolting every nerve in my body to life.
“The night I left your apartment… after we…” He swallowed hard. “I wasn’t running from you. I was running from what you made me feel. The thought of planting roots, of building something that wasn’t a temporary structure I could walk away from… it terrified me. Because with you, for the first time, I could actually see it. A future. Not just a series of disconnected adventures, but a life. ”
His eyes were dark, intense, stripped of all artifice. This was the real Rhys.
Not the charming nomad or the reckless artist. This was the man, raw and vulnerable and laying his entire heart at my feet.
“Losing a project, a deal… that’s nothing. I’ve lost them before. But the thought of losing you. Of walking away from this… this messy, complicated, beautiful thing we have. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. It’s the only thing I’m not willing to lose. ”
He framed my face with his hands, his grip firm and grounding. “I’m not an adventure, Ava. I don’t want to be your chaos. I want to be your partner. I want to build things with you. I want to fight for you. I want to plant roots so deep they can weather any goddamn storm that comes our way. Right here. With you. ”
Every wall I had, every defense I’d ever constructed, crumbled into dust. The woman I was three days ago would have analyzed his proposal, pointed out the logistical flaws, the emotional risks.
She would have been terrified of the instability he represented.
But I wasn’t that woman anymore. That woman’s life was a beautifully organized, empty shell. In the wreckage of her downfall, I’d realized what I truly wanted.
It wasn’t safety. It wasn’t control. It was this. This terrifying, exhilarating, heart-stopping feeling of being truly seen. Of being fought for.
Of being loved.
I surged forward, my hands tangling in his shirt, and crashed my mouth against his. It wasn’t a soft, tender kiss.
It was a collision. It was desperate and hungry, a confirmation and a capitulation all at once. It was the taste of tears and coffee and second chances.
I poured all my fear, all my anger, all my broken pieces into it, and he took it all, kissing me back with a fierce possession that stole the air from my lungs.
He deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with mine as he backed me up against the kitchen island, his body pressing flush against mine. The cold marble was a shock against my back, but his heat was a brand on my front.
I clung to him, my anchor in the storm, the man who hadn’t just weathered it, but had sailed right into the heart of it to pull me from the wreckage.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathless, foreheads pressed together. The tablet with my future on it lay forgotten beside us.
“Stay,” I whispered, the single word holding the weight of a thousand pleas.
His eyes, dark and full of promises, met mine. “I’m not going anywhere. ”