It had been two endless days since I had possibly fucked up the best thing ever in my life, and I’d been torturing myself ever since. I needed to see Dylan, to talk to him, but the idea of starting this conversation when I didn’t even know where we stood was paralyzing. I had picked up the phone and started to call him a dozen times, but I never let the call connect. I was being a coward, and I knew it, but all of our problems were still there, even without the Eric situation. Where would we even start? How would I even tell him?

I’d read about this kind of thing in Cosmo and heard it talked about on talk shows—was Dylan going to feel like I’d cheated on him even though Eric had just gone and kissed me without my permission? Would he believe me? Had I somehow allowed this to happen? I felt like a first-rate idiot for not realizing what Eric had been thinking, despised myself for not having told Eric about Dylan sooner.

These thoughts, this torture, had had me muttering to myself under my breath and generally acting like a crazy person as I put the finishing touches on the store that day. It was Wednesday and the store wouldn’t open until Saturday. The team of contractors clearly thought I was insane enough to work double time to get away from me, and I’d been working twelve-hour days mainly to avoid my problems, so at least I was ahead of schedule.

I wearily climbed the subway steps on Union Street, exiting with all the others who were coming home from work, and made my way up the hill. I gave a halfhearted wave to Margaret, the woman who ran the taco stand, and tucked my bag under my shoulder. I was about halfway up the block when it started to rain. It had been clear it was coming—the clouds were heavy and the air was humid, thick with the impending drops—but its start was surprising all the same. The drops were full, the kind that soaked you instantly.

I should have run. I was only a half block from my door. But instead I stopped. My mind had been going at warp speed and my emotions were just a step behind. I was exhausted. I was weighted and felt foggy and dirty. I needed a moment. I needed to breathe. I needed to be caught, if not by Dylan, then by that rain. So I stood, not under an awning, but right there in the middle of the sidewalk and looked straight up into the drops hitting my face.

Rain always made New York smell fresh, for just a few moments before it smelled like wet city. It was cleansing. I stood there waiting for the familiarity to wash over me, the sense memories of New York in a torrential downpour. But they never quite came. And I realized that at no moment of this trip had I felt like I was truly home.

The raindrops started to bleed in with my tears as I realized that never again was the city I’d grown up in going to be home. Never again was New York, the city where I’d lived with my father, the city where I’d lost my father, going to be the one place that made me feel safe and cared for. I could never go back there. Never go back to before. No matter how many minutes away from Dylan, I was changed. He was part of me. My home was with him.

Maybe this is what people meant when they said growing pains, because fuck, it did hurt. I could feel my heart breaking all over again, losing a part of my innocence I hadn’t realized I’d been holding on to.

I wasn’t a girl just dating some guy. I was building a life with the man I was going to marry. We’d fought. We’d fought because we had baggage, and fears, responsibilities, and dreams. We’d fought because we needed each other. We’d fought because we were holding each other to a higher standard, the standard you hold someone to when you’re going to spend your life with them. Getting kissed by a boy I’d once known wasn’t going to break us. The only thing that could break us now was us.

How had I never known that loving someone so much was going to mean facing things you were afraid of? Why hadn’t I realized that fighting for your relationship wasn’t a onetime thing, but something you did every day?

Without realizing it I’d started walking towards my apartment, towards a dry place where I could call Dylan, because I may have lost a place, a city, that used to complete me, but it was clearer than ever where my home was now. I needed him. And if he needed time, I could give it. If he needed patience, I could wait.

Assuming, of course, he could forgive me after I told him about the kiss.

I rounded the corner and tucked my head down, walking straight towards my building. My jeans were soaked through, and my bangs were dripping their own steady stream onto my cheeks and nose. I tucked myself into the overhang of the doorway to my building and began digging through my tote for my keys. When I pulled them out to put the key in lock, I saw a notecard tucked into the doorframe.

Familiar cream-colored card stock with the four initials at the top, DWLH. Dylan William Lucas Hale. My breath caught in my chest as I took in the words.

I whipped around, feeling my heavy wet hair fling against my opposite cheek, and looked straight across the street into the coffee shop. There, sitting at the only table in the window, was a pair of high-end jeans, sexy-as-hell laced boots, a T-shirt, and a pair of impossibly blue eyes looking right at me. Standing, staring, meeting my gaze. I moved to cross the street, but before I even had a chance to look both ways, Dylan was a blur, the rain bouncing off his shoulders as he came for me.

His big warm hands moved me back into the doorframe, and I stared straight into those eyes, into my home. The rain was pounding at his back, and drips started to fall from his hair onto his face. He was looking right at me, and I saw everything. I saw how foolish we’d been for fighting, how even if the fight mattered, and it did, it was minor in the context of us, of the fact that we’d be together. Forever. No matter what.

He brought his hands to my damp cheeks and pushed aside the hair sticking there, clearing my face so he could look at me.

“Damsel,” he said, then he closed his eyes for a just a second. “Lydia.” The rainwater was cascading over his broad hand and dripping from his wrists to my chest. I couldn’t believe he was there, in front of me, right where I needed him.

“Dylan, I…why are you here?”

“Why am I here? Baby, I’m here because I couldn’t go another day not seeing you, not saying what we need to say.”

“I need to tell you something,” I started. I wanted this conversation to be everything, for us to get back to where we needed to be. I needed to tell him that someone else had kissed me. But before I could, he leaned down and pressed his lips against mine. Not with passion, but with purpose. So soft, so warm, so firm, so right.

“I love you,” he said, leaning into me, so my back was pressed up against the door.

“I love you too,” I said, looking up into those preposterously blue eyes, droplets of water gathering on his lashes.

Dylan once again brushed my wet hair from my face. “Open the door, damsel.” His words were firm and loving as he whispered against my ear. “I want to talk to you, to see you, but let’s do this inside, shall we?”

I realized the keys were still in my hands, but I couldn’t move. I was so relieved, so warm, just beginning to ask myself how the hell he’d gotten here to my Brooklyn doorstep.

Eventually, he reached into my palm and took the keys, sliding the thick blue security key into the lock, and with his palm against my lower back he urged me through the doorway. I turned around, took his hand in mine, and led the way up the four flights of stairs to my apartment. I knew I was cold, I could hear my teeth chattering, but I didn’t feel cold. I felt warm, relieved, stunned, so unbelievably happy to have my hand back in his.

We silently walked through my door, my bag dropping and a puddle forming at our feet. Dylan shut the door behind us, locked it, and put his hands on my arms. He never took his eyes off mine.

“Dylan, I’m so glad you’re here. There’s so much to say. I want to tell you something,” I started again and closed my eyes just for a beat.

“There’s no rush, baby. I want to talk too. We need to. But you’re positively soaked.” I looked down and realized that he wasn’t nearly as wet as I was. “I’ll put on the kettle. Go change. I’m not going anywhere.” He smiled again, and I kept turning back to look at him, to make sure he was really there as I walked to the bedroom.

By the time I emerged in my leggings and hoodie, my hair swept into a wet ponytail, Dylan was sitting on the old velvet sofa in my living room. One foot resting on the other knee, the window behind him, framing his muscular silhouette, his hair still wet from the rain. He looked calm, relaxed on that old sofa—Dylan was here in my apartment. Months ago I would have felt so odd about him, the 17th Duke of Abingdon, on my couch, but now it was just him, and it was perfect. Or it would be.

He held his arms out, inviting me, and I walked towards that couch knowing that this was going to be one of those moments that worked its way into the story of us.

“Come here.” He hauled me onto the couch, pulling my legs over his lap, and handing me a mug of tea. “I’m sorry, damsel,” he said.

“No. I’m sorry—” I started.

“Let me say this, Lydia.” I nodded, and slid just a little closer to him. “I was wrong to let you just go. That night my mother told me how much she’d sacrificed to be with my father, and I…you know, it doesn’t matter what she said. What matters is that I didn’t trust you to know what you wanted. I was terrified that you didn’t know what you were getting into with me. But you deserve more from me. I promised that to you last year. If we’re going to repave this godforsaken road I’ve been on, and we are, we will, I must trust you, trust us, and I didn’t. I wish I could go back and do it again.”

“It’s okay, Dylan. I get it. I do. You’re unlearning everything you’d convinced yourself of for years. And I’m learning it all for the first time. But I do know—I do—that you’re it for me.” I put down my tea on the coffee table, shifted to sit on my heels, and I kissed him gently on the cheek. “I love you. So much.” I gulped, because I knew that the rockiest parts of this conversation were yet to come, but the way he was looking at me in that moment—I wanted it for just a second longer before I said what I needed to say.

Our fingers were interlaced, and he was stroking the back of my hand. Suddenly, I felt him fiddle with my left hand, felt him slide something onto my finger.

“I think it’s time you wore this, don’t you?” he asked, smiling only slightly.

I looked down and gasped. I saw the most stunning ring on my finger, and every thought I’d just had emptied from my head. A brilliant canary diamond, four not-so-tiny white diamonds, a classically beautiful antique setting. I would never have known to imagine that ring. It was perfect. I wasn’t sure I was breathing. Not sure I was seeing or hearing or feeling anything other than the sparkling testament on my hand. Just like it had the first time we touched, the world zoomed out into a fog, and he zoomed in.

“Dylan,” I said. His name coming out as a breath. “It’s beautiful. I…” I couldn’t finish the thought. I was entranced, not believing this was happening, suddenly feeling like the engagement was real in a way it hadn’t been before.

“It’s the ring my grandfather gave my grandmother. She never took it off. There are others—a sapphire or an emerald if you’d pref—”

“It’s perfect,” I said, shaking my head already feeling fiercely possessive of the symbol on my hand.

“You’re perfect.”

“No, I’m not. But I love you so much.”

Dylan pulled me against his body, our damp skin melting together.

“You’re mine, damsel. Forever. It’s time the world knows we’re in this together. Not just for a night, but for life.”

I nodded, crying for the second time in an hour, and crawled over his lap and into his arms. “And you’re mine.” I buried my face in his shoulder, and he held me so tightly against him, as though wrapping ourselves in each other could undo days of silence, of absence. Slowly he began stroking my hair, and I found myself mindlessly drawing circles on the back of his neck with my finger. I smiled like a fool when I saw the hundreds of tiny diamond rainbows dancing on the wall, the light shining through the stones in my ring.

“I hate to ruin this moment, damsel, but I’ve had nothing but coffee for the last six hours as I waited for you in that coffee shop. How do you feel about dinner?”

I laughed, imagining Dylan sitting there among the Park Slope work-from-home crowd, the college students who fancy themselves poets, and all the others who turned that coffee shop into their office all day, much to the baristas’ chagrin. He must have stuck out like a sore thumb. “Famished,” I replied, and grabbed my phone from my bag to call up the takeout options.

We were going through the menu of the sushi place on the corner when a text flashed across the top of my phone screen.

From Eric.

Only the first few words were visible, but those few words were enough.

No. No. No. This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.

My hands stilled. I couldn’t take my eyes off the phone, and I could feel the weight of Dylan’s stare on my cheeks. A beat passed. Then another. Both of us frozen.

Finally, because I knew I had to speak first, I said, still staring at my phone, “Dylan, this is what I needed to tell you. It’s not what you think—” God, I knew how that sounded. So cliché.

“Look at me, Lydia,” he said, all the warmth gone from his voice. I turned to look into those blue eyes, now steely, vacant. He had the outward appearance of total calm, but I knew that rigidity, that impassiveness. He was lowering the curtain on me, and I couldn’t let him.

“Fuck.” The word just came out of me. I didn’t know how to get the rest out.

“Fuck?” His eyebrows were raised, declaring what a stupid thing that was for me to have said. He pulled away from me and sat perched on the edge of the couch, as though he were ready to launch himself away from me.

“No, listen. Please. Two nights ago I ran into a friend from college, a writer from the Times, from the style section. He was going to write something up about the store.” I gulped. I kept waiting for him to be enraged, for him to stand, to stomp, to slam something, but instead he kept his eyes on me, testing, gauging. “I was exhausted from the day, and we went out for drinks, which turned into dinner. We were just chatting and catching up. We just drank and ate, and talked about college and friends. That was it. Then when we got outside, and I was waiting for a car, he kissed me. He just did it. And it was horrible. It was horrible. And I broke away. I swear I did. And I told him immediately I was engaged, but—”

“But it was too bloody late at that point, wasn’t it?” It wasn’t a question. His facade was cracking—there was the anger I’d been waiting for. The hurt. “You couldn’t have bloody well just said you were dating someone, could you? You obviously didn’t appear unavailable.” He was furious. He was standing now. Pacing the room.

“Dylan, we hadn’t talked in over a week. When I left I wasn’t even sure what you were thinking. I’ve spent every second of every day thinking about you, about us, about our fight. I’ve been drowning in thoughts about us. I wasn’t not telling him because I wanted him to think I was single. I’m so used to not talking about us, to anyone, so I just didn’t tell him anything. It’s not like he asked if I had a boyfriend and I said no. I was nervous to tell you about it, afraid of this reaction, but I knew I needed to, wanted to. I was going to tell you tonight but then you put the ring on me and I got distracted. I had no intention of hiding this—there’s nothing to hide. He kissed me, not the other way around. And the second it happened I stopped it and told him I was engaged.”

His face became calm again, and I realized my phone was in his hand. He looked down at it, and then a look of sheer determination came over him. He reached for his shoes.

“Where are you going?” I asked, and I saw him pocket my phone as he reached for my keys with his other hand.

“I’ll be back. I need to think, Lydia. Don’t leave this apartment,” he said. It wasn’t threatening. It was efficient. And I hated it. I wasn’t supposed to be about efficiency. I was his person, the part of him that freed him from that, and now he was treating me like a board meeting. And I probably deserved it.

“Dylan!” I shouted as the door closed behind him. I was sitting on the couch, in my leggings, a sweatshirt, and a priceless engagement ring on my finger, and once again I was crying. What had I done?

Two hours had passed, but it felt like two days. I was curled up in my bed, in the fetal position, all thoughts of dinner forgotten, staring at my engagement ring and running the entire scenario through my head. I needed Dylan to understand that it had meant nothing. He couldn’t be so rash as to throw us away over this. This stupid, stupid thing.

The door finally clicked open, but my back was to him, and I was too afraid to turn around. I heard the rustling of clothes, and the sound of crinkling plastic, and then I felt his hand on my shoulder.

“Look at me, Lydia,” he said.

I turned to look at him, and could feel how red-rimmed my eyes must have been.

“Dylan, I—”

“No, listen.”

I nodded in compliance—I had to let him lead this show.

“I know it meant nothing. I know it wasn’t your fault.”

I nodded again, almost not believing what I was hearing, but so grateful to hear the truth come from his lips.

“It doesn’t mean I’m okay with what happened, but I’m not angry, baby. Eric said you hadn’t been flirting, that it was on him—”

“What?” I sat up in the bed. “You called him? You didn’t believe me?” A flash of surprise crept over my skin.

“Are you going to try to convince me that I didn’t have the right to confront the man who kissed my fiancée? Of course I believe you. I trust you. I was just so furious that someone else thought they had a right to touch you like that. I had to set him straight—he needed to know with zero uncertainty that you were not available.” That made me feel better, knowing he believed in me, in us. “It was rather enlightening, actually. You know he tried to call you seven times since Monday night?”

“I know. I didn’t want to talk to him. I’d already felt like I’d betrayed you enough by allowing him to kiss me. I couldn’t bear to face it. I needed to talk to you before I would ever talk to him again, but we weren’t talking, and…I just couldn’t—” My words were flying out of me a mile a minute, and I could feel my breathing start to pick up, go into panic mode. Dylan wrapped his large hand around my shoulder, not quite soothing me, but wanting me to stay with him.

“Yes, well, you probably should have answered. He’d Googled you as soon as you’d left him at the curb—‘ran away like a house afire’ were his words”—and he actually flashed a minuscule smile as he said that. “And it had taken him all of three seconds to put together that you were engaged to me. He was doing you a favor—trying to either warn you, give you time, or get you to comment before he broke the story.”

Oh god—it hadn’t even occurred to me that Eric posed that kind of threat. I’d been so preoccupied by the personal betrayal of the whole thing, I’d momentarily somehow forgotten that he could hold that over me, that he was press. “Fuck, I’ve made an ever bigger fuckup than I fucking realized,” I yelled at myself and threw my head into my waiting palms. I’d been so caught off guard that he didn’t know, I didn’t think about what it meant if he did. “And I told him we were engaged. Not just dating but engaged. Everyone will know.” The words were muffled by my hands.

“Yes, well, I’ve taken care of that aspect.”

“How?” I sniffled.

“Well, for starters, the guy clearly cares about you, and I told him you’d be devastated if this is how the news was released. He’s not going to say anything. I also, unfortunately, had to promise the man that kissed my fiancée that we’d provide him with at least one exclusive detail at some point. Can’t say I’m eager to keep that promise.”

“I’m so sorry, Dylan.”

“Yes, well, more importantly, we are engaged aren’t we?” He took the hand and held the ring that rested there. “Even if we don’t make an official announcement, the reality is, as soon as we walk out that door tomorrow, there’s no keeping it a secret anymore. And if it’s not Eric Stuart”—he made a look of disgust as he said his name—“it will be someone else who breaks the news.”

I nodded, because it was true. It wouldn’t happen tomorrow—there were no Brooklyn paparazzi stalking us here, but it would happen. The ring was our announcement.

“Also, damsel, this was one of the consequences of being a secret. While this was never one of the reasons you cited when arguing for us to make our engagement public—I don’t believe ‘it will stop men from trying to kiss me’ was ever mentioned—it is undeniably true that while our engagement went unannounced, men would presume to have a chance with you.” He sat closer to me on the bed and wrapped his large hands around my face, forcing me to look up into his eyes. “And really,” he whispered, “how can I blame them when I can’t keep my hands off you either?”

“Dylan, can you really look past this? I’d want to crawl out of my skin if someone had kissed you.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to fucking throttle that fucker. I did. I do. But, baby, the truth is that this very nearly happened to me—not under the same circumstances, but the night of that party at the palace, Beatrice and Amelia tried to bloody mount me.”

“What?” I asked, taken aback.

“Baby. They didn’t kiss me. I assure you—I didn’t let them. I understand your panic though—the fact that it nearly happened had me out of my mind. I didn’t tell you because nothing happened. But if it had…the thought of losing you kills me, baby.”

“You should have told me.” I looked at him, disappointed, sad, jealous in retrospect.

“I should have.” I just stared down at him, wishing none of this had happened.

Dylan took my hand in front of him and twisted the ring around my finger. Then he slid my other ring, the placeholder ring, from my right hand. “No need for this anymore.” He put it on my nightstand. I looked at it sitting there and was sad for moment—it meant something to me, but I was happy, so happy to be feeling like we were edging our way out of a near miss. Together.

“Now,” he said, exhaling as if to say, I’m glad that’s all over with, “what have you eaten over the last two days? If I know my girl, you’ve been so absorbed by this that you’ve probably had a latte, full stop.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“As I thought. Let’s remedy that. I can’t have you wasting away on me.” Dylan went back to the entryway and returned with a large takeout bag. “How does sushi sound?”

“Yes!” I groaned with longing and practically leaped over the edge of the bed and ran towards the kitchen to get out plates and chopsticks. It was after eleven, and we were finally sitting down to dinner.