I lock the bedroom door behind me, but the click doesn't bring the relief I expected.
The bed sags when I drop onto its edge, my hands pressed flat against the mattress like I'm trying to anchor myself to something solid.
The ceiling has the same seventeen knots I counted during my sleepless night.
I trace them with my eyes while my brain refuses to stop replaying Mason's smug expression, the casual way he suggested I terminate my pregnancy like he was recommending a dry cleaner.
Clean slate. The words loop through my mind on repeat, each iteration making me want to throw something heavy through the window.
The door opens without a knock, and I don't startle.
Part of me was waiting for exactly this, for him, for the one person who seems to know when I need space and when I need the opposite.
Jake slips through and closes the door behind him, his broad frame blocking the light from the hallway for a moment before he steps fully into the room.
"Hey." His voice is soft and careful. "You okay?"
I can't answer with words. Words require thought, and thought leads to feeling, and feeling leads to the kind of breakdown I can't afford right now.
Instead, I cross the space between us in three quick strides, my fingers finding his shirt buttons, my mouth seeking his with a desperation that borders on violent.
The kiss tastes like hunger and panic and please make me forget, and for exactly three seconds, Jake lets me have it.
His mouth opens under mine, his hands coming up to grip my waist, and the heat that sparks between us is real, undeniable, the same electricity that's been crackling since the night he pulled me from my wrecked car.
Then his fingers close around my wrists, gentle but immovable, and he pulls back far enough to breathe.
"Kelly." My name is a warning. "Stop."
"Jake, please." I press closer, trying to close the distance he's created, but his arms are steel. "I need you."
"You need to not feel anything right now." His steel-gray eyes cut straight through every defense I've constructed, seeing the panic beneath the desire, the fear beneath the hunger. "That's not the same as wanting me."
The accuracy of his assessment cracks something open in my chest, something I've been holding together with spite and sheer force of will.
Tears burn behind my eyes, and I hate myself for the weakness, hate that he can read me so easily, hate that I can't even use sex as an escape hatch without being called out on it.
"What's wrong with wanting to forget for five minutes?" My voice comes out smaller than I intended. "What's wrong with wanting to climb out of my own head for just a little while?"
"Nothing." Jake guides me to sit on the bed, settling beside me without releasing my hands. "But I'm not going to be the thing you use to run away from yourself. You deserve better than that." He pauses, his jaw tightening. "So do I."
The words land softly, without accusation or judgment. I swallow hard, my throat aching with suppressed sobs.
"He's going to destroy me." The admission tears out of my chest before I can stop it, raw and ugly and terrifying. "Mason won't stop until he's taken everything, Jake."
"Then don't let him." Jake's voice is steady, certain in a way I desperately want to borrow. "Fight back."
"With what?" I pull my hands free, gesturing at the small bedroom, the rustic cabin, the borrowed life I've been hiding in. "He has my father, the board, the press, an entire PR machine dedicated to painting me as the villain."
"You have yourself." He tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze, and the intensity in his steel-gray eyes makes my breath catch. "The woman who crashed into our lives and somehow made three grown men completely lose their minds."
A wet laugh escapes me, tears and amusement mixing in a way that feels dangerous. "That's your pep talk? I'm good at causing car accidents and emotional chaos? Because I have to say, Jake, your motivational speaking career might need some work."
"You're not alone anymore." His expression softens. "And whatever you decide, whether that's walking away from all of it or going back to fight for what's yours, I'm with you." He pauses, letting the words settle. "We all are."
I stare at him, this man who keeps offering things I don't know how to accept.
His loyalty makes no sense. His steadiness makes no sense. Nothing about the past seven days makes any logical sense, and yet here I am, more certain of these three strangers than I've been of anyone in years.
"What if I fight and lose?" The question emerges small and scared, the voice of the little girl who spent her childhood trying to earn approval that never came. "What if I go back and give everything I have and Mason still wins?"
"Then you lose knowing you tried." Jake releases my hands and stands, his presence filling the room even as he moves toward the door. "That's more than most people can say. And it's a hell of a lot better than spending the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if you'd been brave enough to fight."
He pauses at the threshold, one hand on the doorframe, and looks back at me with an expression I can't quite read.
"You don't have to decide tonight. Just think about it. Think about what you actually want, not what's easiest or safest or what causes the least amount of conflict. What do you want, Kelly Goodwin?"
The question hangs in the air between us, heavy with implications I'm not ready to examine.
"Jake." I wait until he turns fully, his steel-gray eyes meeting mine across the small bedroom. "Thank you. For not letting me use you."
"Anytime." The corner of his mouth lifts into something that's almost a smile, warm and slightly wicked. "For the record, I'm absolutely available for use later. When you actually want me, not just an escape hatch."
The door closes behind him, and I sit in the silence he left behind, turning his words over like stones in my palm.
The ceiling fan spins its useless circles above me. Somewhere in the cabin, I hear Oscar's laugh and Konnor's low response, the sounds of people who showed up for me without being asked.
The baby I've decided to keep flutters somewhere beneath my ribs, too small to feel but suddenly, impossibly real.
What do I actually want?
For the first time in weeks, I think I might know the answer.
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