Three months.
Three months of quiet mornings and shared laughter. Three months of watching her belly grow, a beautiful, perfect curve that held their entire future.
Audrey stood in her new office, the words “Head Curator” gleaming on a modest brass plaque on the door. The office overlooked the museum’s main hall, where a new exhibit was being installed. Her exhibit. The one she had designed from the ground up, with no one second-guessing her, no one whispering poison in her ear.
The scandal had faded, just as Kian had predicted. The news cycle, ravenous and forgetful, had moved on. What remained was the truth. Cole Anderson was serving a five-year sentence for aggravated assault and destruction of property. Jenna, in exchange for her full confession, received probation. Beatrice Sterling was, according to a single, terse postcard sent to the Sterling Industries board, living in a sun-drenched exile in Monaco.
The museum, once a battleground, was her sanctuary again. Her exhibit, the one Cole had tried to destroy, had become a record-breaking success, its story of survival adding a layer of poignant meaning that drew crowds in droves.
The door creaked open.
Kian stood there, holding two paper cups. He wore jeans and a simple gray Henley that stretched across his chest. He looked like the man from the docks, but the easy confidence, the lack of shadows in his eyes, was entirely new.
“Logistics consultation,” he said, his lips twitching into a smile. He set one of the cups on her desk. “Hot chocolate for the senior executive. Coffee for her driver.”
“I could get used to this service,” Audrey said, wrapping her hands around the warm cup. She was twenty-five weeks pregnant, and the baby was kicking, a happy little flutter against her ribs.
“Don’t,” he said, leaning against the doorframe, his presence filling the room. “My rates are astronomical.”
He watched her as she reviewed a blueprint for the new installation. He loved watching her work. The focused intensity, the passion that had first captivated him, was back, brighter than ever. She was no longer a woman fighting for survival. She was a woman in her power.
“The lawyers called,” he said, his tone casual. The news was a formality now, a loose end being tied. “Cole’s final appeal was denied. He’ll serve the full term.”
Audrey didn’t flinch. She just nodded, taking a slow sip of her chocolate. The name was a ghost from another life, a story she might one day tell their child about a monster who was defeated.
“Good,” she said simply.
They had moved out of the sterile penthouse a month ago, buying a sprawling brownstone with a small, overgrown garden. It was filled with books and blueprints and half-finished projects. It was filled with life. It was a home.
“Ready to go?” Kian asked. “We have an important appointment.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought our only appointment was with a pint of cherry fudge ice cream and that documentary about ancient Rome.”
“A slight change of plans,” he said, the corner of his mouth ticking up in a way that told her he was hiding something.
He drove them not toward their brownstone, but back toward the waterfront. The late afternoon sun was turning the sky to shades of orange and rose gold.
“Kian, where are we going?”
“A detour,” was all he said.
He parked near the old shipping terminals, the place where it had all begun. The air smelled of salt and diesel and history. He led her past the chain-link fences, past the dormant cranes standing like steel skeletons against the sunset.
He took her to the end of a long, quiet pier. They were alone, with the gentle lapping of the water and the cry of a distant gull.
Audrey looked at him, her heart starting to beat a little faster. This was the place she had run to when she was suffocating. This was the place where she had literally crashed into him, into a new life.
“This spot,” Kian said, his voice soft, full of reverence. “This is where I saw you for the first time. You were running, and you looked like you were trying to outrun the entire world.”
“I was,” she whispered.
“I didn’t know who you were,” he continued, his hands finding hers. “I didn’t know your name. I just knew that I had spent my entire life feeling like I was in a cage, and when I saw you, I felt… free.”
He held her gaze, his love for her a raw, powerful force that took her breath away. “You did that. You freed me, Audrey.”
She saw it then. The final piece. The last promise yet to be made.
He looked at her, at her beautiful, strong face, her hand resting protectively over their child. He looked at the life they had built from the wreckage of their pasts. A quiet kingdom of their own making.
Everything he had ever wanted, everything he ever needed, was standing right here in front of him.
And he knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that it was time to make it last forever.