“Promise,” she echoed, stretching up to seal it with a kiss that washed my worry away, leaving only my trust and faith in her. In us.

And I sank into it without another thought.

23

Gravity

LILA

It took us a solid week, but we got my wedding contracts moved to Kash’s business, and I found myself unendingly grateful that through all of this—the tumult for his family and the uncertainty of their future—he’d been at all worried about me. They decided to give Bower the bird, keeping Longbourne open and welcoming the lawsuit like Bruce Lee stepping into a circle of drug lords.

There was much to be said for the single-minded determination and perseverance of the Bennet family.

They had already delivered on their promises to keep my position safe. In fact, at that moment, Kash and I were ambling down Fifth in the delivery van on the way to the Felix wedding.

My excitement was electric, the rush that came with the day I’d been working for, the dash of anxiety in wondering what kind of obstacles would be thrown at me, the thrill of knowing that after today, I would largely be done with the Felix family. And by proxy, Brock.

It was everything I’d been waiting for, and I was only one very long, hectic day away from it.

I’d planned a whole celebration for Kash and me to mark the occasion. Tonight felt like the beginning, the real beginning when we could be together without any Felix-sized obstructions. No more cameras, no more humiliation, and most importantly, no more Brock. Just me and Kash and whatever our future held.

And tonight, I was going to surprise him with the news.

I’d bought an apartment.

It had fallen into place a few weeks ago when I found an apartment near Longbourne within hours of it listing. My real estate agent showed it before lunch, and by mid-afternoon, I made an offer. It was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, and the second I’d walked through that front door, a feeling of kismet had struck me. The apartment so close to the imagined space of my daydreams, it was uncanny, though it needed to be renovated. Gutted, really, which was the only reason it was listed at such a price—still an insane amount of money, but a steal for the Village. Walking through that apartment, its windows tall and the light buttery and brilliant, I could see those lazy Sundays take shape, blossoming and blooming in the empty space.