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Because the truth is—I’m not just fond of her.

Iadoreher.

And worse?

I’m starting to want things I have no right wanting.

Like falling asleep next to the sound of Torack’s voice instead of emails. Like helping Lillian with science homework. Like building a life here that isn’t just contracts and logistics and laminated policies but family dinners and fairy traps and someone who touches me like I’m something precious.

The garden is a riot of green and gold and color, overgrown in the way only magical spaces can be—like nature got bored of symmetry and just decided tovibe. Lillian leads me to a patch of overturned stepping stones, each one ringed in glitter and hollowed out like bait stations.

“This one’s the deluxe trap,” she explains proudly. “It’s got banana chips and emotional validation.”

I blink. “What?”

“I left a note that says ‘you are enough.’ Fairies like that. That’s what Daddy says when I get mad about coloring outside the lines.”

I sit down hard on the nearest rock.

It’s damp. I don’t care.

Because now I’mcrying.

Not sobbing. Not noisy. Just tears leaking without permission while Lillian chatters about fairy etiquette and glowworm lighting strategies.

Because her dad—this battle-scarred, stoic orc—tells her she is enough.

Because she’s quoting it tome.

Because I kissed him last night, and somehow I think I’m already halfway in love with this place, this child, this impossible man, and I haven’t even let myself say it out loud.

Lillian looks up, frowning.

“Are you leaking?”

I laugh through the tears. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

She climbs into my lap without asking, settles there like she’s always belonged, and pulls my arms around her.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I leak sometimes, too. It’s not a bad thing.”

I nod, arms tightening around her. “No, sweetheart. It’s not.”

And just like that, all my denial cracks.

I’m not just pretending nothing happened with Torack.

I’m pretending like I haven’t already started building something here.

Something messy. Something real.

And now?

I think I want all of it.

CHAPTER 16

TORACK