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Her heart stopped.

“Don’t you dare,” said Fia, going to the window.

“Is it him?” Rory asked.

“Yes,” said Fia. “Let me at him.” She picked the butter knife up off the counter.

“No,” said Quinn. “Let me. Please. Just let me.”

She got up and walked out to the front porch. And as soon as he got out of the truck, she knew.

His eyes were red, and he hadn’t bothered to hide that.

He looked different. She could finally see the change on his face that she had felt inside.

Softening.

“Quinn,” he said. “I love you.”

She jumped down off the porch, skipping all three steps, and flew into his arms. He kissed her, deep and hard and long, and she clung to him.

“I love you,” she said against his mouth.

“I realized... Quinn, I realized that I need you. And that if it breaks my heart, it is worth it. Because you are worth everything. Every potential cost. All the risk. I would gladly break myself into pieces for you. I get it now. My parents. Everything. I don’t care that I’ve been hurt. I don’t care that there are bad people out there. There’s also you. I don’t need just anybody. I need one person. And that’s you. Nothing scares me. Not anymore. Because when I put everything through my Quinn-colored glasses, I can see that all I want, what I really want, is to have you. No matter what.”

“Levi, that’s...really and honestly the best thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“I bet they didn’t teach you this in college.” He kissed her.

“No,” she said, breathless, when they parted. “They didn’t. Neither of us were as smart as we thought we were when this all started.”

He laughed. Long and genuine. “No, carrot. We weren’t. And I love you. You and your little cotton socks.”

“You have a real thing with my socks.”

“I have a real thing with you.”

She sighed, joy filling her chest, her lungs. “They end up together.”

“What?”

“You told me that now you wouldn’t know how Pride and Prejudice ended. But I just wanted you to know, they end up together.”

He smiled, and she remembered that moment, staring into his blue eyes at his house that first day she had come. When she had wanted to move nearer to him, but she hadn’t. This time, she did.

“Of course they end up together. It’s the only way.”

“That’s right. It is.”

They kissed again, lingering out there in the early morning light. They would have so many days like this. They would work together, and eat dinner together, and go to bed together.

And it was just the most beautiful, hopeful thing she’d ever dared dream.

She’d felt like she’d lost her dreams when she was a kid. A kid who dreamed of Levi and life in a city, of something bright and glittering.

This was all the glittering she needed.

Right here.