The three dots appeared and vanished. Appeared and vanished again. A digital heartbeat of indecision.
Then his reply came through, stripped of all artifice. As raw and direct as a punch to the gut.
Because it was the only way I could give you back what they tried to take.
A second text followed immediately.
Please, Audrey. Let me explain. Not over the phone. Let me tell you everything. My apartment. The one you know. The key you have. I’ll wait there. For as long as it takes.
The texts sat on her screen. An invitation. A plea.
Going to him felt like a surrender. Staying away felt like a different kind of defeat.
She thought of Cole’s voice on her voicemail, flat and dead and terrifying. Nowhere you can go.
She thought of the Aethon Pendant, a legendary artifact resurrected by a single email, a silent testament to Kian’s power. A power he had just used to protect her.
One man was trying to trap her. The other was trying to set her free.
Her choice was clear. It was terrifying, but it was clear.
She drove to the docks under the cover of darkness. The city lights blurred into streaks of gold and red. She parked a block away from his building, her hands trembling on the wheel. Every step from the car to his front door was a war with herself.
The brass key was cold in her hand. It slid into the lock with a familiar click.
The apartment was exactly as she remembered. Small, sparse, masculine. It smelled of him—sea salt and clean linen and something uniquely Kian.
He was standing by the window, staring out at the harbor lights, his broad shoulders slumped. He looked not like a magnate, but like a man who hadn’t slept in days. He turned as she closed the door behind her, his face etched with a desperate hope.
“You came,” he breathed.
“You resurrected a mythical artifact, Kian. You didn’t leave me much choice.” Her voice was brittle, devoid of warmth. She wouldn’t make this easy for him.
“I know,” he said, taking a step toward her, then stopping himself. He looked lost in his own home. “I know how it looks. Another grand gesture. Another display of power. But it wasn’t about that. It was… an apology. In the only language I thought you might hear.”
“Why the lie, Kian? From the very beginning. Why?” It was the only question that mattered.
He finally looked her in the eye. The exhaustion was there, but underneath it was a raw, painful honesty. “Because I’m a coward.”
The confession hung in the air, simple and shocking.
“My entire life,” he continued, his voice low and rough, “people have seen the name. Sterling. They see dollar signs, influence, power. They don’t see the man. They see a target or a tool. Women see a prize. I hated it. I hated the person it was turning me into.”
He paced the small room, his energy too big for the space. “So I created him. The guy who works at the docks. The logistics consultant. A man with nothing but what he earned with his own two hands. I just wanted… for once in my life… to meet someone who saw me. Just me.”
He stopped and looked at her, his gaze burning with intensity. “And then I met you. That first night. You were so alive. So passionate about your work, so angry at the world that tried to suffocate you. You didn’t care about my watch or my shoes. You saw me. And I was terrified that if you knew the truth, you’d see the lie. The name. And I would lose you.”
“So you kept lying,” she said, the accusation sharp.
“Yes,” he admitted without hesitation. “And it was wrong. It was selfish. Every day the lie got bigger, and every day I fell harder for you, and I didn’t know how to stop it. I’m so sorry, Audrey. I am so, so sorry for the pain I caused you.”
He had laid his soul bare. No excuses. Just the ugly, vulnerable truth.
She felt a crack in the ice around her heart.
She had to tell him. He deserved to know what he was fighting for. What they were both facing.
“Kian,” she began, her voice shaking. She wrapped her arms around her waist. “There’s something else. Something you don’t know.”
He waited, his entire body tense.
“The night of the gala… when I ran from Cole, I didn’t just run to the waterfront.”
“I know,” he said softly. “You ran to me.”
“And I… I’m pregnant, Kian.”
The words dropped into the quiet room like stones into a still pond. She watched his face, searching for any flicker of shock, or anger, or denial.
She saw only stillness. A profound, waiting stillness as he processed the impossible.
“And there’s more,” she forced herself to say, the next words tasting like poison. “I don’t know who the father is.”
She braced for the impact. For him to recoil, to accuse her, to walk away.
He didn’t.
He closed the distance between them in two long strides. He didn’t touch her, but he stood so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body. His eyes, dark and stormy, searched hers.
“Is it Cole’s?” he asked, his voice impossibly gentle.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, tears finally blurring her vision. “The timing… it could be him. Or… it could be you. I’ve taken a test. A paternity test. I’ll know in ten days.”
This was it. The moment of truth. The moment he would either save her or shatter her completely.
He slowly raised his hands and cupped her face, his thumbs gently wiping away her tears. His touch was electric, a current of pure, undiluted certainty.
“Then we’ll know in ten days,” he said, his voice a raw vow. “It doesn’t matter, Audrey. Do you hear me? It doesn’t change a thing.”
“How can you say that?” she sobbed, the dam of her control finally breaking.
“Because I’m in love with you,” he said, his gaze pinning her, holding her up. “Not your circumstances. Not the baby. You. If that child is mine, I will love it, and I will be its father until my last breath. And if it’s not… then I will protect you both from him with everything I have. I will stand between you and him and my mother and the entire goddamn world. I am not going anywhere.”
His unconditional vow was the one thing she never knew she needed. It wasn’t a cage. It wasn’t a trap. It was a shield.
A raw, keening sound tore from her throat, a mix of grief and relief so profound it buckled her knees.
He caught her, pulling her against his chest, his arms wrapping around her like steel bands. She buried her face in his shirt, inhaling his scent, and wept. She cried for the lies, for the fear, for the suffocating loneliness.
He just held her, murmuring her name, his hand stroking her hair.
When her tears subsided, she was left exhausted and empty, leaning against him. She tilted her head back to look at him. The space between them was charged with everything they had just confessed. All the secrets were gone. There was only the truth, raw and messy and real.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered, the words a prayer.
“Never,” he growled, and then his mouth was on hers.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a desperate, claiming act. It was hunger and forgiveness and a frantic promise. She met his passion with her own, her hands tangling in his hair, pulling him closer.
He swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, never breaking the kiss. He laid her on the bed, his body covering hers, a warm, solid weight that felt like an anchor in a storm.
Clothes were torn away with desperate haste. There were no slow seductions, only a raw, urgent need to erase the space between them, to reaffirm the connection that had survived secrets and lies and sabotage.
He moved over her, his eyes locked on hers, asking a silent question. She answered by arching up to meet him, a silent plea of her own.
When he entered her, she cried out his name. It was a moment of absolute surrender and perfect clarity. It felt like coming home. Every touch, every kiss, every movement was a word in a conversation their bodies were having, a conversation of healing, of possession, of a promise sealed in sweat and heat.
They moved together, a frantic, desperate rhythm against the encroaching darkness of the world outside, finding their sanctuary in each other’s arms.