<b>Chapter </b><b>107 </b>


    -HUNTER’S POV-


    The bathroom door opened with a soft click, and I turned from where I stood in the middle of her living room, my keys forgotten in my palm.


    Celine emerged wrapped in a pale pink robe, her damp hair falling in waves around her shoulders. When she saw me, she froze, her hand still


    on the doorknob.


    “Hunter.” Her voice was carefully neutral. “Did you forget something?”


    I held up my keys. “Caesar’s room.”


    “Oh.” She pulled the robe tighter around herself, creating another barrier between us. “Well, you have them now.”


    The dismissal in her tone was crystal clear. Polite, grateful, but final. Like I was a stranger who had done her a favor and now it was time for


    me to leave.


    “Celine.”


    “Thank you for today,” she said quickly, not meeting my eyes. “Caesar had the most wonderful time. It was… it was really nice of you to


    include me.”


    Nice. The word hit me like a p.


    “Nice?” I repeated, my voice dangerously quiet.


    She nodded, still looking anywhere but at me. “I should let you get going. It’ste, and I’m sure you have important things to do tomorrow.”


    Important things. Like she wasn’t the most important thing in my life right now.


    I watched her move toward the door, clearly expecting me to follow. Instead, I stayed exactly where I was.


    “We’re not doing this dance again, Celine.”


    She stopped, her hand on the door handle. “I don’t know what you mean.”


    “Yes, you do.” I took a step closer, and she immediately stiffened. “You’re building walls again. After the day we just had, after everything we’ve shared, you’re trying to push me away.”


    “I’m not pushing you away. I’m being realistic.” She finally looked at me, and I saw the fear she was trying so hard to hide. “Today was lovely, but it doesn’t change anything.”


    “Doesn’t change what?”


    “This.” She gestured between us, her voice rising slightly. “Us. Whatever this is. It can’t… it can’t continue.”


    The panic in her voice made something fierce and protective rise in my chest. “Why not?”


    “Because!” The word burst out of her, raw and desperate. “Because men like you don’t end up with women like me, Hunter. Not really. Not


    forever.”


    There it was. The truth she’d been trying to hide behind politeness and gratitude.


    “Men like me,” I repeated slowly.


    UM


    <b>58</b><b>%</b>量


    “Rich. Powerful. Important.” She wrapped her arms around herself like she was trying to hold herself together. “You have your whole life nned out. Your mother, your business, your future wife who’ll look perfect on your arm at charity gs…”


    “My future wife?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.


    “Someone from your world. Someone who fits.” Her voice cracked on thest word. “Someone who isn’t a maid with a three–year–old son and a high school diploma.”


    I stared at her, seeing clearly for the first time what was really happening here. This wasn’t about me. This wasn’t about us. This was about every person who had ever made her feel like she wasn’t enough.


    “Celine,” I said quietly, “look at me.”


    She shook her head, tears threatening to spill over.


    “Look at me.”


    Reluctantly, she raised her eyes to mine.


    “Do you remember what you said to me at the shooting gallery today?”


    She frowned, confused by the change of topic.


    “You told me I was being an idiot. You were right about the games being rigged, and you told me exactly what you thought about my stubborn refusal to listen.”


    “I… yes.”


    “And when Caesar wanted that teddy bear, what did you do?”


    “I tried to talk you out of it.”


    “You stood your ground. You didn’t care that I was your boss or that I had money. You cared about what was right.” I took another step closer. “And when we were on that roller coaster, screaming our heads off, were you thinking about charity gs?”


    A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth despite herself/“No.”


    “What were you thinking about?”


    “How terrifying it was. How Caesar wasughing. How you…” She stopped.


    “How I what?”


    “How you looked so happy,” she whispered. “Happier than I’d ever seen you.”


    “Because I was with you,” I said simply. “Because for the first time in years, I wasn’t Hunter Reid, CEO. I was just… me. The man who spent thirty dors trying to win a teddy bear because it would make his son smile.”


    Her breath caught. “His son?”


    “Yes.” I moved closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in her brown eyes. “Caesar is mine, Celine. In every way that matters. And so are


    you.”


    “Hunter…”


    “I don’t want a wife who looks perfect on my arm. I want the woman who argues with me about rigged carnival games. I want the woman


    who hums in the shower and kisses my cheek like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I want the woman who makes meugh until my stomach hurts and who isn’t afraid to tell me when I’m being an ass.”


    Tears were streaming down her face now, but she didn’t look away.


    “I want you, Celine. Not some fantasy version of you that fits into my world. You. Exactly as you are. With your son, your dreams, your stubbornness, and your incredibly bad habit of assuming the worst about my intentions.”


    “But your mother….”


    “Will learn to ept it or she won’t. But that’s my problem to handle, not yours.”


    “The staff<b>, </b>the gossip…..”


    “Let them talk. I don’t give a damn what they think.”


    “But I do!” The words exploded out of her. “I have to live here, Hunter. I have to face them every day. I have to protect Caesar from hearing whispers about his mother being the boss’s whore.”


    The word hit me like a physical blow. “Is that what you think you are to me?” <fnb152> Checktest chapters at Find~Novel</fnb152>


    She looked away, her silence answer enough.


    “Jesus, Celine.” I ran my hands through my hair, anger and frustration warring in my chest. “How can you think that after today? After everything?”


    “Because it’s what everyone else will think,” she said quietly. “And eventually, you’ll start to see it too. The novelty will wear off, and you’ll realize what everyone else knows – that I don’t belong in your world.”


    “My world is cold and empty and full of people who smile in my face and count my money behind my back,” I said harshly.


    “My world is board meetings and charity functions and conversations about stock prices over dinner. My world is lonely, Celine. It’s been lonely for years.”


    I moved closer, until there was barely a breath of space between us.


    “But today, for the first time since I can remember, I wasn’t lonely. Today I had a family. Today I had you.”


    She was crying openly now, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs.


    “I’m scared,” she whispered.


    “I know.” I reached up and cupped her face in my hands, my thumbs wiping away her tears. “I’m scared too.”


    “You are?”


    “Terrified,” I admitted. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. I’ve never wanted to protect someone the way I want to protect you and Caesar. I’ve never been willing to fight my entire family for someone.”


    “You’d do that?”


    “I’d do anything for you,” I said simply. “Anything at all. But I need you to stop running from me. I need you to stop assuming the worst. I need you to trust me.”


    She searched my face, looking for lies, for cracks, for any sign that this was temporary. Whatever she saw there must have convinced her, because she nodded slowly.


    13:04 Tue, 5 Aug


    “Okay,” she whispered.


    “Okay?”


    “I’ll try. To trust you. To stop running.” She took a shaky breath. “But Hunter, if you hurt me, if you decide I’m not worth the fight…”


    “Iwon’t.”


    “You don’t know that.”


    “Yes, I do.” I leaned my forehead against hers, breathing in the sweet scent of her shampoo. “Because I’m in love with you, Celine. Completely, hopelessly, terrifyingly in love with you.”


    Her eyes went wide with shock.


    JOW


    “And I’m in love with our son, who has my eyes and your stubborn chin and who makes me want to be a better man than I’ve ever been.”


    “Hunter…”


    “I know it’s too soon. I know this is crazy. I know I’m asking you to trust me with your heart when I’ve given you every reason not to. But I’m asking anyway.” I pulled back to look at her.


    “Because what we have is real, Celine. What we have is worth fighting for.”


    For a long moment, she just stared at me, tears still tracking down her cheeks. Then, so quietly I almost missed it, she whispered:


    “I love you too.”


    The words hit me like lightning, electrifying every nerve in my body. Before I could respond, she was rising on her toes, her lips finding mine in a kiss that tasted like tears and hope and forever.


    When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, I rested my forehead against hers again.


    “So what now?” she asked.


    “Now we figure it out together,” I said. “All of it. My mother, the staff, and the gossip. We face it together.”


    “Together,” she repeated, like she was testing the word.


    “Together.”


    A soft sound from Caesar’s room made us both turn. He was talking in his sleep, probably dreaming about roller coasters and cotton candy and the best day of his young life.


    “He’s going to be so happy,” Celine said softly.


    “That we’re together?”


    “That he gets to keep his daddy.”


    The simple trust in her words nearly undid me. I pulled her close, holding her tight against my chest, feeling her heart beat against mine.


    “He’s not the only one who gets to keep me,” I murmured into her hair.


    She pulled back to look at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Promise me something?”


    “Anything.”


    “When your mother finds out about us, about Caesar… promise me you won’t let her make you choose,”


    1 frowned. “What do you mean?”


    “Promise me you won’t sacrifice your family for us. If ites down to it, if she makes you choose between your inheritance and us… Promise me you’ll choose what’s best for your future.”


    “Celine…”


    “Promise me.”


    I cupped her face in my hands, looking directly into her eyes. “I promise you that when the timees<b>, </b>I’ll choose what’s best for our future. All of us. Caesar, you, and me.”


    She nodded, satisfied with that answer, and let me pull her close again.


    We stood there in the quiet of her living room, holding each other, listening to our son’s peaceful breathing from the next room. For the first time in my life, I understood what home felt like.


    Whatever storms wereing – and I knew they wereing – we’d weather them together.


    But first, I was going to savor this moment. This perfect, peaceful moment when everything felt possible.


    AD