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"But not without a fight." Deandre crosses his arms.

Then Sergio pipes up. "We saw your paintings."

Oh.Oh. I flash back to the previous morning and looking at the images I'd made through new eyes. I understand immediately what he's saying.

The canvases I filled while I was trying to sort through my emotions were filled with impossible love, but also with conflict. If someone I loved had painted them, I would have been hot on their heels in a minute.

Apparently, that's what happened here.

"Right." I rake my hair back from my eyes.

"They were beautiful," Adam says.

I shake my head. "They were things I was just playing with."

"They're amazing," Deandre insists.

After all this, I'm still having a hard time accepting the praise. I curl into myself. "They were what I felt."

Sergio nods. "So then you know why we're here."

My silence is my acknowledgment.

Cayden rises from his seat, moving to kneel in front of me. "What I still don't understand, though, is why you ran. Why then?"

"I wasn't lying. Richard really was threatening to give away my job, and I suddenly felt so penned in. Like I wasn't going to have any options—"

Deandre's expression goes grim. "You mean after we kicked you to the curb."

The rest of the guys actually recoil. There are rumbles of dissent, but I look up to meet his eyes. He knows.

I nod. "Exactly."

Cayden's eyes burn. "That's not going to happen."

"I know. I mean—I'm trying to believe. But it's hard."

"Well," Cayden says, "we're going to do everything we can to make sure you do. We're going to love on you so hard…"

I don't doubt it. The way he's looking at me, there's no room for even the tiniest bit of skepticism. I don't need him—or any of them—to say it more explicitly. He loves me. Just like I love him.

A rosy glow in my heart bursts and blooms. I'm ready to throw myself into his arms and let him kiss away all the old wounds Richard left on me, all the history of being left behind by my family.

But I can't. It doesn't matter how good I feel right now. Our time together up on the mountain was great, but there were flaws. I can't let them go unspoken now. Staying quiet would be dooming us to repeat this whole cycle again a month, a year—maybe two from now. I won't do that.

I sit up straighter. I look from Cayden to Deandre to Jax. To Sergio and Adam and back. "But it's—it's not about you"—my voice cracks—"loving me."

"We do, though," Cayden insists.

Deandre shushes him, and I glance at him appreciatively. It feels like hubris to say that they love me, even though Cayden just stated as much and received no dissent. Even though these men all rode eight hours through the night to get to me.

I've said it, though. It's out there, and there's no taking it back.

There's only forward.

"In fact…" I suck in a deep breath. "I think you've been loving on me too hard."

"What?" Cayden looks at me as if I've slapped him.