Jeff didn’t sleep, and he felt worse in the morning than he had the night before when Vivian’s call had left him an absolute wreck.

He’d thought—vaguely hoped—that she might call back, but she hadn’t, and he could hardly blame her for that.

He’d told her the truth as he understood it. But he hadn’t been nice. He’d hurt her a lot, and he couldn’t stand that he’d done so.

But he also didn’t know what else he could do.

He went into the office early, walking into the empty office suite.

There were hundreds of unread emails in his inbox, and there was mail piled up in the box on his desk. There was a strange kind of comfort in starting to tackle it, of going through message by message, replying, deleting, filing, sorting. All of it easy, mindless, safe.

None of it would hurt him the way he was hurting now.

His office door was closed, but he was vaguely aware of other people coming in. He heard the soft buzz of their chatting outside his door.

It was Saturday, but they’d all been gone for a week. He wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t the only one to want to come in and catch up some this morning so it wasn’t all waiting for them on Monday morning.

He’d glanced at the website and saw there was a new posting about their retreat, complete with beautiful photographs of Balm in Gilead and even some pages of the scrapbook they’d put together while they were there. It was getting tons of responses and social media shares. He wondered if Cecily was ready for the explosion of publicity this posting would be giving her and Balm in Gilead.

It hurt some. To know that Vivian had been focusing on that post last night or this morning or whenever she’d gotten it up.

She’d turned their week there into another pretty picture for the world to see.

She’d sounded so broken last night.

He’d started to wonder if maybe she’d been telling him the truth.

But she hadn’t called him back. She hadn’t come to see him this morning.

If she’d been real, she would have done something.

Something.

He hoped she was okay. If she was pretending everything was nice and perfect again, then she’d backslid. It just wasn’t good for her.

A tap on his office door distracted him from these thoughts.

He grunted out a response, and the door opened to reveal Vivian standing in his doorway.

She looked pretty in jeans and a simple white top, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail. But she also looked exhausted, with dark shadows under her eyes.

“Can I come in?” she asked, sounding strangely hesitant.

He didn’t like to hear her sound that way. It made him feel guilty—like he had treated her wrong, like he had somehow stomped out the brightness of her sweet spirit.

“Yeah,” he said. When his voice was too hoarse, he straightened up and cleared his throat.

She took a few steps into his office and closed the door behind him. “Everyone came in this morning,” she said, glancing behind her at the common area of the office suite. “I guess everyone had the same idea.”

He nodded. He wasn’t up to making small talk, although he recognized the value in trying to return to normal.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a different tone.

“Yeah. I’m not great, but I’ll be okay. What about you?”

“I’ll be okay too.” She was searching his face strangely. “I… I posted something.”

“I saw it,” he said, thinking about the pretty pictures of Balm in Gilead she’d showed the world.

She stood very still, watching his face.

“What?” he asked, after a moment.

She shook off a flicker of what looked like pain. “You don’t have anything to… to say about it? I didn’t think it would fix things, but I thought you might…”

“I might what?” He frowned at her. “What did you think I’d have to say?”

He sounded too cool again, the way he’d sounded the day before.

Vivian’s features twisted very briefly, but then she let out her breath. “Okay. I understand. I… Our time together this last week will always mean a lot to me. I hope you believe at least that.”

The pain caught him off guard and stole his breath. He managed to nod. “I do.”

She nodded in response. Opened her mouth as if she would speak. But then she dropped her gaze and turned around to leave his office, her face very pale.

She looked wounded.

Like he’d wounded her.

He couldn’t stand the thought of it, and he had to fight the instinct to run to her, take her in his arms, make her feel better.

But he couldn’t keep doing that if it was just going to hurt him in the end.

“Vivian,” he said, before he knew he was going to say anything.

She turned around, her eyes wide in the way they always were when she was trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am. I told you I was in this for the long haul, but I guess I was wrong. I’ve… I’ve been hurt before.”

She gave a tight little nod. “I know you have, Jeff. I know how much Kaylee hurt you. And the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you too. I do understand.”

He could see that she did as she left his office. She understood and sympathized with him even though he probably didn’t deserve it.

For just a moment he felt like an asshole. A selfish asshole who had run for the shore at the first sign of rough water.

Maybe that was who he was, who he’d always been at heart.

He was bothered by this thought and by the whole conversation so much he couldn’t return to email. He pulled up their website and looked at the Balm in Gilead posting again, searching the captions and vaguely wondering if there was something there he needed to see.

She’d acted like it would mean something to him, but all this could do was wound him.

He looked at each picture, read each paragraph. It was beautifully done. Intelligent. Theologically insightful. Even emotionally compelling.

But it wasn’t personal.

At all.

It was just her old pattern—showing that perfect, pretty face to the world.

He’d really believed they’d gotten past that, but he’d evidently been wrong.

He’d gotten to the end when he glanced at the byline and saw Grace’s name there.

His mouth dropped open for a minute.

Grace had put up this post. It was done so well he’d assumed it was Vivian, but evidently not.

Grace had done this.

Not Vivian.

But Vivian had just stood there and told him she’d posted something.

He scrolled down farther on the website and saw a video post by Vivian.

This was different. He hadn’t seen this.

This was what she’d been talking about.

His heart was beating like crazy as he hit Play.

Vivian’s face appeared, and his chest ached at the sight of how sad and vulnerable and nervous she looked, her hair hanging messily around her face, her lips pale, her eyes red from crying.

She never filmed herself looking like this.

She never let anyone see her looking like this.

It was so surprising that it took a while for him to realize what she was even saying.

She was talking into the camera, as she sometimes did when she had something she wanted to share. But whenever she did so, she was always well prepared. She might sound casual and natural to the regular observer, but he knew she never put herself on film unless she was sure she could get it right.

She wasn’t rehearsed here though. She spoke haltingly, sometimes pausing, sometimes repeating herself.

She occasionally wiped away tears as she spoke.

When he’d finally processed what was happening enough to really listen, he had to click to restart from the beginning so he wouldn’t miss anything she was saying.

I know this isn’t what I normally do. I’m a mess. I know. I’m not having a breakdown or anything. At least I don’t think I am. I’ve got a broken heart, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a broken person—in need of a savior. And I guess it’s when our hearts are breaking the most that we see who we really are most clearly.

Jeff’s mouth had fallen open as he listened to her speak, as he watched her swipe a couple of tears away as she did.

I like to make my world as beautiful as possible. You all know I do. It’s what I’m good at. And I think there’s something of value there. I really do. God gave us the beautiful things in this world—and our own creativity—to enjoy, to see some of his beauty in. I think it’s good. But I got to the point where I tried to hide behind that, where I don’t admit who I really am beneath. I have a friend. He’s always telling me that I don’t have to always show a pretty face to the world. I always knew he was right, but it’s only now that I see how right he really was.

She was talking about him, nakedly, openly, nothing left for her to hide behind. He could barely breathe around the lump in his throat, which was pulsing with his racing heartbeat.

We’re all broken in one way or another. We’ve all gotten our hearts broken. And no matter how much we try to pull ourselves together, to fix what’s broken, to make ourselves pretty and acceptable again, we just can’t do it. I can’t do it. And I guess the reason I’m doing this is that I want to admit it. Be honest about who I am. I… I’m broken. And I can’t fix it or make it pretty again. Only God can do that. I made a mess of a relationship that’s one of the most important things in my life—and I did it because I was afraid of being vulnerable like this, of needing someone else, of showing him who I really was. But this is me. In all my brokenness. Needing him. Loving him. Even if it’s never going to work out.

Jeff was almost dizzy as he tried to process what she was saying, what she obviously meant in the deepest heart of her. He couldn’t believe she was putting it on camera, showing herself to the world.

For him as much as for herself.

I guess I just wanted to show my friend that all that he’s invested in me over the year wasn’t a waste—even if he feels like it was. She had to pause to control the sob in her voice. So that’s it. That’s me. Not very fabulous when it comes right down to it. But a child of God nonetheless. He loves us when we’re broken even if it feels like no one else does. He loves us because we’re broken, and from that maybe we can learn to love each other too.

The video ended there, and Jeff’s eyes were burning as it concluded.

When he could focus enough to see the screen again, he saw in confusion that there weren’t any likes or shares or comments on the posting.

That was strange for any posting but particularly on one like this.

He suddenly wondered if she’d set it so that only he could see it.

He wouldn’t blame her.

He would never be brave enough to post something so vulnerable for the entire world to see.

He checked the settings, though, and saw that the video was public. She’d just set it to disable comments or shares.

She wasn’t looking for accolades or notes of praise.

She hadn’t done this as a show.

She’d done it for real.

He was almost choking on emotion as all this registered in his mind.

Then he replayed the previous conversation with Vivian.

She’d asked him if he’d seen what she’d posted, and he’d told her he had.

Then he’d dismissed it—dismissed this—as if it were nothing.

She’d thought this hadn’t meant anything to him at all. That was what he’d made her believe.

And even before that, he’d made her believe she wasn’t good enough, that she’d fallen short of what he’d needed in a relationship.

He’d been telling her all long that she shouldn’t feel that way.

And then he’d done it to her far worse than her parents ever had.

The knowledge, the realization, the guilt washed over him in a flood, stealing his breath and freezing his muscles.

He literally couldn’t move for a whole minute. Maybe longer. He lost track of time.

He jumped to his feet so quickly that his chair rolled back violently and collided with a loud bang against the file cabinet and then rolled back toward him, hitting the back of his legs.

He ignored the impact and strode out into the main room of the office.

Mel glanced up from her desk and evidently read his presence correctly. “She’s already left.”

Jeff swallowed over a curse and strode toward the door.

As he started down the stairs, it hit him hard that Vivian was walking home right now, thinking he didn’t really love her, that she wasn’t worthy of his love.

And he’d made her feel that way.

With a ragged gasp, he started to run.

He raced down the steps, nearly stumbling once and having to catch himself with the handrail. Then he burst out of the building, turned in the direction of her apartment, and sped up to a dead run.

Other people on the sidewalk turned to stare at him as he sprinted past them, but he was barely even conscious of them.

All that mattered was Vivian.

Somewhere in front of him.

Needing for him to reach her.

On the fourth block, he finally saw her golden hair ahead of him. She was walking slowly, her shoulders slumped slightly.

He kept running, and he’d built up so much momentum that he had a hard time slowing down as he reached her.

“Vivian!” he gasped, coming to a jerky halt after he’d just passed her.

She gave a little squeal of surprise at his sudden appearance. Her face was pale, and it looked like she’d been crying again. She looked confused and hurt and delicate and strong and so incredibly dear.

“Vivian,” he said again, trying desperately to catch his breath so he could speak. He was panting and sweating and throbbing with heat and urgency.

She’d raised a hand to cover her mouth, obviously shocked. “What are you doing, Jeff?” she asked. “Is everything all right?” The tear tracks on her cheeks broke his heart.

He tried to speak and couldn’t, so he had to raise his hand to indicate he needed her to wait a moment.

She stood perfectly still as she waited.

Passersby were slanting them very strange looks, but neither he nor Vivian seemed to care.

“I’m so sorry,” he rasped, as soon as his voice worked again. “I’m so sorry, Vivian. I was the one who was wrong. I was the one who messed up. Not you. Not you.”

Her face softened slightly, as if it meant something to her that he’d come after her, but she said, “It’s really okay, Jeff. You were right. I was still holding back. I was still… trying not to be completely vulnerable with you. I don’t blame you for not accepting that from me.”

He shook his head as she started and kept shaking it as he continued, “I was more wrong than you. I was… I was judging you and making you feel unworthy, just like I’ve always resented your parents for doing to you. I was just scared—scared of being hurt again. I was just as scared as you were, and so I… so I was a selfish coward. I finally saw that video you posted—I hadn’t seen it when we talked earlier—but you shouldn’t have had to do that to reach me. I should have been here with you all along. I’m sorry, honey. You’re… you’re everything to me. I love you exactly as you are. And I can wait until you’re ready… for saying I love you or for going public or for anything else. I promise I can wait. I’m not going to bail on you again. If you…” He paused, completely breathless and because he was suddenly terrified he’d blown his last chance with her. “If you can forgive me. If you can give me another chance.”

Vivian stared at him for a few moments after he’d finished, and he could feel his racing heartbeat in his chest, in his ears, in his feet, in the air around him.

Then she gave a little sob and threw her arms around his neck.

He kind of collapsed against her as he gathered her into his arms—in absolute relief and also exhaustion.

“I love you, honey,” he murmured thickly against her hair. “And I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she gasped, her arms tightening around him even more. “I love you too.”

She was sobbing against him now, and Jeff felt like sobbing too. He might have messed up, but it didn’t mean he had to lose everything.

She was his.

She was still his as much as he was hers.

He wasn’t sure how long they hugged on the city sidewalk, but eventually Vivian pulled away from him, a rueful amusement evident beneath the joy on her face.

“You’re all sweaty,” she told him.

He gave a little huff of amusement. “I know. I had to run after you.”

“I was just going to my apartment. You could have caught up to me there.”

“I didn’t want to wait that long.”

She gave a little giggle, wiping the tears off her face. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

Jeff might have said something else. The world had turned into a blissful blur, so he wasn’t really sure if he did or not. But they ended up returning to the office.

As they walked into the suite, Mel and Grace had looked up from their computer screens and Garrett and Rachel stopped talking. The others were here too. Everyone was here.

Vivian hadn’t wanted to go public yet, and he was going to respect that for as long as she needed.

He took a step away from her and tried to look like everything was normal.

Vivian gave a soft laugh and reached out for him, pulling him into a no-holds-barred kiss.

There was nothing else he could do. He wrapped both his arms around her and kissed her back.

His blood throbbed in his veins with a kind of joy and knowledge and certainty he’d never felt before.

But this was right. He knew it was right.

It was real. Absolutely real, all the way down to the core.

Vivian loved him and wanted him and wasn’t holding anything back. He could feel it in the way her mouth moved against his easily, he could sense it in the warm press of her body, and he knew it down to his bones.

The office erupted in cheers and claps and laughter, and it was only then that he remembered they had an audience.

He released Vivian sheepishly, keeping one arm around her, and looked around at the rest of their staff, all of whom were grinning at them.

“It’s about time,” Garrett said, pushing his glasses higher up his nose. “We’ve been waiting for you all forever.”

“You have not,” Vivian replied. Flushed and laughing and still clinging to Jeff’s shirt with one hand. “Nothing’s been happening between us before this past week.”

“Oh please,” Mel said with an approving smile. “It’s been going on for months now. All of us have known it.”

“If you say you’ve taken bets on when we’d get together,” Jeff said with mock seriousness, “then every one of you is fired.”

It turned out there hadn’t been any bets.

But there had been a tally kept of all the hints and clues and loaded moments that had proved that he and Vivian were falling in love.

And then evidently all their secrecy for the past week had been completely futile. Everyone had known they’d been sneaking off together.

Looking back, he could see that his relationship with Vivian had been developing, deepening, over the past year. He’d kept pushing back the knowledge since he’d thought it was hopeless.

But the rest of the staff knew them well, and they cared about it.

It wasn’t surprising they’d known all along.

***

A month later, Jeff stopped by Vivian’s office to see if she was ready to head to dinner.

She was reading through a stack of papers, looking focused and serious and gorgeous in her tailored purple jacket.

“What do you have there?” he asked, frowning slightly as he tried to think through what should be on her desk this week.

“It’s one of the final book proposals,” she said, barely glancing up as he entered. “Garrett whittled them down to three, so you can’t complain about my reading them. This one is really good.”

“Which one is it?” Now that he’d discovered what she was reading and checked it off on his mind as an approved task for her to spend her time on, he was interested in her impressions.

“The one on antiques. I’m loving the sample chapter.” She was clearly absorbed in it because she hadn’t set the papers down or turned her attention to him yet.

He didn’t really mind.

They might be together now, but she would always love and be absorbed by her work. He didn’t feel like he was second place, but whatever she was doing at the moment took her full attention.

He was the same way when she walked into his office, so he could hardly complain when she did it to him.

He waited for a couple of minutes in silence until she finished the chapter and set the papers down on her desk. “This is the next book we should do for sure.”

He nodded. “I thought it looked good too. We can talk to Garrett about it tomorrow.”

“She even uses Isaiah 60,” Vivian said with a wistful little smile. “Did you see?” There was a memory in her eyes as she met his.

He reached over to take her hand from her desk and raised it to his mouth. Pressing a little kiss on the knuckles, he murmured, “I did see that. Of course I did.”

They were both remembering the exact same moment—a month ago, in that little shop on the Outer Banks, standing over an antique side table.

It was the moment when Jeff had truly believed for the first time that there might be a future for them.

A future with them together.

He was living out that future now—as miraculous as it still sometimes felt when he woke up in the morning, opened his eyes, and remembered that Vivian loved him, that she wanted him to love her.

They gazed at each other for a few more seconds until Vivian seemed to remember that she wasn’t supposed to be a sappy person. With an ironic twist of a smile, she moved the book proposal back into her inbox and turned to her computer monitor.

She glanced at the new emails that had come in before she closed down the program and then shut down her computer. “You ready?” she asked, turning her head back to him as her computer screen went dark.

“Yep. I’m just sitting here waiting for you.”

“Well, I’m not late. We’ve got more than ten minutes to walk over to the restaurant.”

“Did I say you were late?”

“Your tone seemed to imply it.” She was obviously not really annoyed because she slanted him an irresistible, teasing look as she got up and walked over to the mirror on the wall of her office.

He got up too and came up behind her as she was checking her hair.

“You look beautiful,” he told her, speaking only the truth.

There was no other woman in the world as beautiful as she was, and nothing had ever changed this belief for him.

She rolled her eyes as she pulled the clip out of her hair and repositioned it.

“Are your parents really going to care about your hair?”

“No,” she said, lowering her hands. “But I still want to look nice.”

“You do look nice. I’ve never seen anyone who looks as nice all the time as you do.” When she made another face, he added, “That’s not just a delusion based on how much I love you. I mean it. You always look nice.”

She was smiling as she turned around to face him, moving a little closer as she did. Her hands lifted, and she straightened his tie and collar.

“Are your parents going to care about my tie?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“No. They couldn’t care less about your tie. They already love you, just from what I’ve told them over the past month, and I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to make them love you less, unless you up and break my heart out of spite.”

He moved his hands over hers and pulled them down from his tie so their hands were clasped together between their chests. “I’m not going to break your heart, Vivian. I’m going to love you forever. You know that, right?”

Her expression had been bright, clever, slightly teasing, but at his words it changed to something soft and tender. “I’m… I’m glad,” she said after a long pause. “Because that’s about as long as I’m going to love you.”

He leaned forward to kiss her softly, but he’d learned not to let himself kiss her too deeply when they were on their way out the door.

He particularly didn’t want to go to dinner with her parents—who’d just flown into town that afternoon—when he was turned on from kissing her.

When he pulled back, she lifted her hands back up to straighten his tie again.

“What are you nervous about?” he asked her, sensing something significant in the restlessness of her hands. “I thought things were going good with your parents lately.”

“They are.” She nodded and then lifted her eyes to meet his. “They really are.”

“Then why are you nervous?”

She gave a little shrug and admitted, “I’ve just never really seen them without my game face before. It feels… strange.”

He smiled, realizing exactly what she meant and exactly why she was feeling insecure.

It wasn’t that she believed her parents wouldn’t approve of him. Or wouldn’t approve of her.

It was that she was trying to be genuine, real, with them—the way she was with him—and she didn’t have much practice at it. It made her feel vulnerable.

He pulled her into a hug, his heart filled with so much emotion it was hard to sort out. Love and understanding and appreciation and something like pride.

That she was so amazing.

And that she was his.

“You ready?” he asked, slightly hoarse as he pulled out of the hug.

“Yes.” She gave another little nod of resolution. “I’m ready. We better go, or we’ll be late.”

He took her hand as they left the office, waving at Mel and Hal, who were both working late this evening.

As they walked out onto the city sidewalk, he was hit with a wave of absolute contentment, leaving the work they both loved with people they loved, holding Vivian’s hand.

Or almost absolute.

He’d bought an engagement ring the week before. He hadn’t been able to resist it.

He just had to figure out the right time to offer it to her.

He was pretty sure she would say yes, but he didn’t want to look like he was rushing her.

He just wasn’t sure how much longer he could wait.