Page 122 of Executive Decision

“No, stop!” She scooted close.

I met her gaze. Her eyes were filled with soft tears, not sad. She wasn’t saying no.

“I just meant you shouldn’t give up on your dreams all because of me, Cal. If my past is too much, I wouldn’t want to ask you to do that.”

I wiped her tears, then held her face. “Daphne, I love you. You have waited decades to put yourself first. You’ve always played second fiddle because of the men who stood in your way. I’ve had a lifetime to reach this place. I’ll take the heat soyoucan shine.”

Tears ran her adorable cheeks. “But what if you resent me?”

“I won’t. I couldn’t. Baby, this is a blip. In ten years, we’ll look back and shake our heads. We’ll probably still be salty about it, but it won’t matter. You’ll have turned the company around and be riding high.”

“And you? What will you do? Do you really plan to peak here?”

I cried and laughed all at once. “I’m the mayor of a world-class city, Daphne. I’ll fucking survive. Unless that isn’t good enough for you?”

“You are plenty good enough,” Daphne took my face in her hands.

She leaned in, kissing me sweetly. I tasted her tears and breathed her in. Daphne was my everything. This was where I belonged.

She pulled away, staring a moment before asking, “You really think we will just shrug about this disaster in ten years?”

“I suspect we will be preoccupied with raising children, busy with work, and enjoying life to giving a flying fuck what Chandler did.”

“You’d have children with someone like me?”

“Daphne, I could only be so lucky.”

“After everything. You must have been horrified?—”

“I was. But the way I learned the news... it was… jarring,” I admitted.

“But you still want to love me? You aren’t embarrassed?—”

“The video disturbed me,” I said.

Daphne looked away, tears falling on her arm.

“Daph, it wasn’t because of what you did in an intimate moment with a partner who betrayed your trust. It was because you looked so out of it. He’d hurt you. Chloe said he coerced you. He?—”

“Stop,” Daphne cut me off. “Don’t say it. I don’t want to talk about it. But he did. And I’m ashamed?—”

“Don’t be. You did nothing wrong, baby. Nothing. You loved and trusted a man who promised before all of us—me included—that he would honor and protect you. He didn’t. You have such love in you for your family that you’d give up on a dream and throw yourself under a bus. But if you do, I’ll never forgive myself—or you—for it.”

“I won’t,” she said. “Davey threatened to fire me if I’m not at work on Monday.”

“Well, then I guess you should go?”

“Yeah, I should,” Daphne agreed.

“So, are we… are we good?” I clarified.

“If you are willing to take the hit, yes.”

“I will take any and all hits if it means I get to wake up next to you tomorrow.”

“Cal, I… I don’t know.”

“I’ve been without you for days. And we ended on a bad note the day you got the news. Please? I need you, Daphne.”

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