Page 322 of Blackwood

I smile faintly. “He still saved your ass.”

Lex huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah, well. Only after nearly blowing the damn house up with all of us still inside.”

“Either way, he still saved your ass. Afterward, I shut down. Shut myself in the hotel bathroom. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. I didn’t want to be strong. Not for you. Not for anyone. I just wanted the world to stop spinning for a minute. Just long enough for me to remember who I was without the mission.”

Lex pulls me into his chest like he needs to feel my heartbeat against his own chest.

“You didn’t knock,” I whisper, voice catching on the memory. “You just came in. Sat beside me. Said nothing. Matched every breath like it was the only way to keep me tethered to the world.”

Lex doesn’t speak, but his eyes are locked on mine like he’s back there too.

“You didn’t try to fix me. Didn’t ask what was wrong. You just… stayed. In the dark. In the silence. You made it safe for me to fall apart.”

My fingers trail up his chest, slow and reverent.

“That night, was the first time I knew. Really knew. That I loved you.”

His jaw tightens.

“Because you didn’t save me like a hero. You held me like a man who’d already made room in his soul for all of my wreckage.”

He says nothing, but his grip on me tightens.

“You’ve been my oxygen ever since, Lex,” I whisper.

His jaw works like he’s fighting everything he wants to say.

“Remember when you took me to Northvale to show me your senior project?”

“The Blackwood?”

“Yeah. The Blackwood. A whole hotel. Your senior project isn’t just a sketch or a floorplan. It’s a monument. A skyrise dripping in black marble and steel. Brutal, stunning… you.”

He exhales through his nose, like he wants to downplay it, but I know him too well. The pride is there, just under the surface. Like a flame he’s still learning how to let burn.

“You said it looked like us,” he says.

“I did. Because it felt like us. The way the shadows wrapped around the glass. The sharp edges and warm spaces. That rooftop suite with the black infinity pool—”

“With the underwater speakers,” he adds, voice lower now. “Because you said you wanted to float and still feel the music.”

I smile. “And the dance studio on the 22nd floor. You designed a fucking dance studio, Lex.”

He shrugs, but his hand finds mine. “Had to give my baby a stage.”

I laugh under my breath. “You didn’t build me a stage, Lex. You gave me a cathedral.”

He goes quiet again for a second. “I’m going to build it, malyshka.”

I blink up at him.

“The Blackwood,” he continues, eyes locked on mine. “It’s gonna be real. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year. But I will build it. Our hotel. Our home. I want you dancing in the lobby barefoot and Cade painting masterpieces on the rooftop terrace. I want the world to know that it’s ours.”

“I believe you,” I whisper.

His thumb brushes the back of my hand.

“You know what else I remember?” I ask, leaning closer.