CHAPTER HUNDRED & EIGHTY-TWO

CHAPTER HUNDRED & EIGHTY-TWO
ASHLEY

The news played softly in the background, the anchor’s voice calm, but the words hitting like waves.

“…Kyle Devereux, formerly Kyle Blackwood, announced today that Blackwood Enterprises will be rebranded under a new identity—KLC Holdings—marking a definitive end to the Blackwood era…”

I stood behind the counter of my store, holding a bottle of jasmine oil I hadn’t realized I’d been clutching for the past five minutes. The scent had long since stopped registering.

My hands were still. My thoughts weren’t.

KLC Holdings. Devereux.

He did it.

The man I watched unravel under the weight of legacy just stood before the world and said, No more. No more lies. No more pretending. No more carrying the name of a man who never deserved his loyalty.

I should’ve felt triumphant on his behalf.

But what I felt most was…stillness. A quiet kind of awe. A full-bodied ache that came with watching someone you love finally choose themselves.

The bell above the door chimed gently, and the draft that followed curled around my ankles like a whisper of instinct. I didn’t need to look.

I knew.

Kyle walked in with the weight of a morning like no other still clinging to his shoulders—but there was light in his eyes. Quiet. Steady. The kind that made you think of home.

He held up a brown paper bag, almost sheepish. “Truce offering. Lunch.”

“You’re late,” I said, trying to smile, but my throat caught.

“Blame the press. They’ve been circling like sharks since the vote passed.”

“I saw it.” I stepped out from behind the counter. “All of it.”

He didn’t respond at first. Just watched me like he was making sure I was real. Like he needed to memorize me now that the storm had passed.

Then he closed the space between us and wrapped his arms around me—slow, deliberate, like he was giving me the choice to lean in or pull back.

I leaned in.

Of course I did.

“You did it,” I whispered into the soft cotton of his shirt. “You actually did it.”

“I couldn’t breathe until it was done,” he murmured against my hair. “And now I don’t know what to do with all this air.”

I pulled back enough to look up at him. “Breathe. That’s what you do. You breathe.”

He searched my face, like the answer to every question he’d ever asked might be there.

“I didn’t do it for revenge,” he said. “Not really. Not at the end.”

“I know.”

“I did it for you. For Lucian. For Ezra.” His jaw flexed, eyes burning. “For every version of me that still thought I needed to earn that bastard’s approval. I needed to kill that ghost, Ashley.”

I nodded, brushing my fingers over his cheek. “And now you get to live.”

That cracked something in him. His throat moved, but no words came for a second. Then:

“I walked into that boardroom and buried my father without needing a casket. I said everything I wanted to say, and the crazy part is… it didn’t feel like victory.”

“What did it feel like?” I asked.

“Freedom.” He exhaled. “For the first time in my life, I felt unshackled. And I don’t think I’d have done it without you.”

I blinked, the emotion catching me off guard. “Kyle—”

“No, let me say this,” he interrupted gently. “You reminded me that control isn't the same as strength. That letting go isn’t weakness. You… you were the first person who ever looked at me and didn’t flinch. Even when I was at my worst.”

I opened my mouth, but again, he kept going.

“You held me together with nothing but your presence, Ash. You didn’t try to fix me. You just stayed. That’s… that’s everything. That’s more than anything.”

He reached for the bag and handed it to me with a wry smile. “And for all that, I bring you overpriced pasta and your favorite kind of lemonade.”

I laughed, a real laugh that cracked through the weight in my chest. “How very poetic of you.”

He raised a brow. “I can do poetic. I just prefer to do it with food.”

We walked back to the tiny seating area I’d set up for clients, the kind with mismatched chairs and soft lighting. He unpacked the food while I poured us drinks from the mini fridge. For a moment, we ate in silence, the kind that doesn’t need to be filled.

Then I asked, “What happens now?”

Kyle chewed slowly, thinking. “Now? We refile all legal documents under KLC Holdings. I start interviews with the press next week to publicly explain the transition. Lucian and I finalize our name changes this month. Then…” He paused.

“Then what?”

“Then I do everything I was meant to do—without a leash around my throat.”

I studied him. This version of Kyle was new. Softer, lighter—but not weaker. No, he looked more dangerous now than ever, but in a way that wasn’t for anyone else’s destruction. This was a man who had finally learned to turn his power inward. To protect instead of control.

And maybe… to love.

He reached over the table, threading his fingers through mine.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “I just keep thinking… we’ve survived so much. You could’ve chosen to burn it all down, but instead, you chose to rebuild. That’s the difference between you and him.”

His thumb brushed over my knuckles. “And I plan to keep choosing right. Especially when it comes to you.”

He leaned forward, brushed his lips against the back of my hand, and said, “When this dust finally settles… I want to talk to you about the future.”

I stilled, my heart thudding a little faster.

“What kind of future?” I asked softly.

He grinned. That lopsided, annoyingly charming grin that always made my insides melt. “The one where we get dressed tonight and go out. Just you and me. Loud music, good food, a little dancing, maybe a terrible karaoke performance. You in?”

I blinked. “Oh.”

That wasn’t what I expected. But it was so him, this version of him kinder, lighter, still completely unpredictable.

He leaned back in his chair, stretching like a man who had just put a war behind him and was finally allowed to breathe. “Don’t look so disappointed,” he said, teasing. “It’s a good plan.”

“It is,” I murmured, but my voice came out quieter than I meant.

Because even as I smiled, even as I nodded and agreed to his idea of a night out, a part of me... a quiet, secret part I hadn’t dared touch until now... wished he’d meant something else. That the future he wanted to talk about involved vows. Rings. A quiet, whispered again.

I glanced down at our intertwined hands, my thumb brushing the back of his lightly.

And that’s when it hit me.

I had never told him I loved him.

Not since everything happened. Not since we found our way back to this place—this in-between of something old and something entirely new.

Maybe tonight would be the night I finally did.

But for now, I just held his hand tighter and said, “Okay. Let’s go out tonight.”

And when he smiled back at me like I’d just offered him the whole world, I wondered if maybe… I already had.