Page 169 of The Yoga Teacher

Hannah nodded.

She was.

She was scared. But she was ready.

Not to go backward.

But to choose him again—with all the knowledge she hadn’t had before.

With all the power she’d reclaimed.

She dusted her hands off on her thighs and stood, her body steadier than it had been in months.

Elaine and Robert stood with her.

“I’m going to tell him,” she said.

She hugged them both before walking toward her future.

Toward the man who had wrecked her life—and waited, humbly, on the edges of it, hoping she’d let him build something better. Something new.

She was ready.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Daniel

EVERY STEP BESIDE her felt like oxygen. Her arm had brushed his once, twice, then a third time like it meant something. She laughed at one of his dumb jokes—actually laughed, head tipped back just a little—and he wanted to bottle the sound.

He’d forgotten what it felt like to walk with her like this. Just them. Bare. Present. Real.

By the time they reached her porch, he was half-drunk on her.

The kind of drunk that made the world slow down and spin sweet. The kind that made the porch light glow warmer, her scarf smell sweeter, her eyes look like something he could live inside.

She turned toward him, key in her hand, but didn’t unlock the door.

Instead, she looked up at him—searching, steady—and then leaned in.

Their mouths met gently. Carefully.

He didn’t pull away, and she deepened it—slow, confident, unafraid. Her hand came to rest lightly on his chest, and he swore the ground disappeared beneath him.

He’d forgotten how devastating it was to kiss her. How it made every bone in his body ache for more.

When they broke apart, she didn’t step back.

“I know there’s some rule about the third date,” she said, voice low, eyes unreadable. “But I don’t feel like waiting.”

He blinked. She wasn’t joking.

“You should come upstairs,” she added.

His breath caught. He nodded, already following her inside like gravity had shifted and she was the new center of it all.

She led him up the stairs with calm certainty, and he followed like a man in a dream. The bedroom door opened.

And for a moment, everything inside him stopped.

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