Pepper got all of three steps before Derek stopped her.

“Wait,” he said.

“No!” Her heart pounded, bile burned the back of her throat. She was going to throw up. Seriously, she was going to puke all over him, and then it would show up on some gossip show and—

“Sweetheart . . .”

His tone did it. The soft, don’t-scare-the-frightened-animal version. As though she might—fine—had run.

Her eyes were damp. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“I love you.”

One tear fell. Then another. She shook her head.

“Come here.” Derek didn’t give her a chance to refuse, just tucked his arm around her and led her back into the shop.

“Back room,” she heard Mitch say distantly, since the dam had apparently broken and she was crying hard.

“I’m—”

“Hush now,” Derek said. “Just wait.”

They walked through another doorway. This room was nothing like the front of the store, filled to the brim with boxes, lit with ugly fluorescent bulbs.

Not that it mattered. Because no matter how hard she tried to ignore him, her eyes wouldn’t drift from Derek for more than a few seconds.

He was tall. He was gorgeous.

She was pathetically in love with him.

“I love you.”

It couldn’t be true. He had to want something, this had to be some plan of her father’s.

This wasn’t real.

And, fuck it all, she deserved something so much better.

She needed someone to love her for her. She was worthy and important and—

Derek pulled out his phone. A bitter part of her half-expected him to start recording her, to sell her tears for front-page fodder.

That part was disappointed when she heard the metallic ring of FaceTime.

Maybe this—

Her father’s face appeared on the screen.

Or not.

“Derek,” he said jovially, “I knew you would see reason.”

“Tell her,” Derek growled.

A pause.

“Cashette—”

“If you love your daughter even a little bit,” he gritted out. “You’ll give her this.”

“Of course I love her,” Peter said. “She’s my blood—”

“Then tell her!”

Pepper listened to the conversation from a distance, not understanding, pulse still pounding and hope, such a tender filament of the toxic emotion, unfurling in her heart.

The phone was thrust into her hands. Peter O’Brien’s face was in hers.

And suddenly she was that little girl again. She needed reassurance but didn’t think her father would be the one to provide it.

He never had.

This time Peter sighed, brows pulled down in frustration. “Derek tried to reach me for weeks to cancel his contract.”

His tone wasn’t comforting.

The words were though.

Her eyes flicked over to Derek. He nodded.

“How many?” she asked softly. It wasn’t really directed at her father, because things were finally making sense.

“How should I know?” Peter boomed.

Derek grabbed the phone, pressed the little red button and her father disappeared from sight.

Thank God.

“Since the first night,” Derek said, one dimple making a quick appearance. “Well, after the stomach flu from death concluded.” He set the phone on a box and took a step closer to her. “Pepper . . .”

“What?” she asked.

“I need—” He shook his head. “Please let me hold you.”

Her breath caught. She knew the moment his arms went around her, she would be done for. This resistance, the barely formed wall would crumble like sand.

Given time, she might heat that sand into glass, make it stronger, make it more impermeable.

But she had the feeling that Derek would always be able to get through.

“Please?”

Pepper nodded, and then she was in his arms.

How did the simple act of being held by another person make all the difference? She was centered, safe . . . cherished.

And that was the difference.

More so than any other person in the world, when Derek held her, she felt cherished.

“I didn’t know you. At first, I didn’t understand.” His forehead came to rest on hers, breath puffing against her lips, minty and sweet, and she was overwhelmed with the desire to close the distance between their mouths. To take that sweetness inside her and let it fill her up. But he was still talking. “I know now,” he said. “I get why we’ve always had that pull. Why my eyes always tracked you, even though I was supposed to be hanging out with your brother. You have this light about you, sweetheart. It’s why people watch you so closely.”

She snorted.

His lips twitched. “And it’s not the disasters. You’ve got this pureness inside, joy in the simple things, a desire to help. It kills me to see how hard people try to stamp that out of you.”

“I make the disasters,” she said. “If I was more careful. Better at staying focused and not getting off track—”

“They would only find something else to pull apart.”

Pepper sighed. “You know what they’ve called me. I’m the Train Wreck in—”

“No,” he said, hand coming up to grip the back of her neck. “You’re mine.”

Why did that declaration make her all shivery?

She snorted. Because Derek was Derek.

“Deny it all you want,” he said. “I don’t want you cracking me in the head with an Oscar, or”—he glanced around at the boxes of art surrounding them—“a sculpture of Aphrodite—”

It was her turn to look around, to spy the piece he’d eyed.

She promptly rolled hers.

“Seriously?” she asked. “An entire room and you pick the naked statue?”

“She had giant—”

“You’re ruining it,” she muttered.

A smile teased the corners of his lips. “How can I save it?”

“Kiss me.”

His face softened, his other hand came up and cupped her jaw. “Now that I can do.”

When his lips met hers, Pepper felt complete. Which was sappy as hell, but also the truth. Derek was the one person in the world who understood her, probably better than she understood herself.

The kiss was short—or well, shorter than she wanted it to be. But his words made up for it.

“Go,” he murmured. “Close your deal so we can go home.”

She raised a brow. “Awfully presumptuous, Mr. Cashette.”

“About the deal?” He smirked. “Or me moving in?”

Her heart swelled, that hope a helium balloon inside her soul. “Both.”

His fingers squeezed the back of her neck, his other hand slid down and caressed the curve of her—

“I bet I could convince you.”

Her hand did a little walking of its own. “I bet I could convince you.”

He laughed. “I’m sure you could.”

“Easy.”

“Damn right.”

“I love you. I don’t know how this is going to work out. What my family—”

“This about you and me.” He crouched a little to meet her eyes straight. “And I don’t know how this will work out either. But I do know I want to figure it out with you by my side.”

Just that simply her nerves settled. No pressure. No requirements. Just her and Derek and a shot at something special.

“My eyes are closed!” a voice, Mitch, called out. “I just need—”

“You’re safe,” Pepper said with a laugh.

Mitch made a noise that sounded disappointed. “I always miss the good stuff.”

“Go,” Derek murmured. “Close that deal.”

Her hands had somehow gotten clenched in his shirt. She released and smoothed the cotton.

“You’ll wait?”

Derek brushed his mouth across hers, whispered. “Always.”