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I hesitate. Not because I don’t know what to say but because I don’t know how she’ll take it.

“You open your own art store.”

She blinks. “What?”

“You love art. You love teaching. You light up every time you help kids paint or create. You could build something here. A shop. A studio. A community space.”

“Luca, I don’t have the money for that.”

“I do.”

She sits up straight. “You… what?”

“I have savings. From the military. Investments. Disability. It’s sitting there collecting interest. Let me be your silent partner.”

“You’re insane.”

“Crazy,” I correct with a smile. “Crazy about you.”

She stares at me like I’ve grown two heads. “You want to fund an entire business? For me?”

“Yes. Because I believe in you. And because this town needs something like that. Because you deserve to wake up excited to go to work. Because I want a life with you, and this is how we build it.”

She shakes her head slowly. “You’re really serious.”

“One hundred percent serious.”

I kiss her softly. Tender. Sure. Her fingers curl into my shirt, anchoring her to me.

When I pull back, I whisper, “Say yes.”

Her brows lift. “Yes to what?”

“To everything. To being mine. My business partner. My roommate. My everything.”

She smiles, eyes glistening. “Yes.”

I pull her into a deeper kiss, relief and joy flooding my chest. She tastes like hope and tears and everything I never thought I’d get to have.

“I love you,” she says again, her voice thick with emotion.

I rest my forehead against hers. “I love you more.”

She laughs softly. “Wanna bet?”

And just like that, my world clicks into place.

NINE

Blake

One Year Later…

Carter has spaghetti in his hair. Again.

I stare at my son—his big brown eyes shining with mischief and his chubby fists proudly smashing a noodle against the side of his highchair tray—and I have to laugh. He looks so much like Luca that it’s ridiculous. Same dimples. Same thick lashes. Same habit of making a total mess and acting like he just won a medal for it.

“Carter Wright,” I say, hands on my hips. “That is not how we eat spaghetti, mister.”