{POV Lila}
I was curled up on Harper's couch, when my phone buzzed.
I expected another voicemail notification from Stefan. I had seven now, each one I'd listened to at least three times without responding.
His voice in those messages ranged from worried to desperate to something that sounded almost broken, and every word carved new wounds into my already bleeding heart.
Instead, it was a text from Harper.
Stefan left my Mom. He's staying in a hotel. He chose you, idiot. Now choose him back before I come after both of you.
I stared at the message, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
He left Eleanor.
I knew he'd said he would. Knew from his voicemails that he'd walked out that night, that he was done with his marriage, that he wanted a divorce.
But somehow seeing it confirmed by Harper, Harper, who had every reason to hate us both, who had no motivation to lie, made it real in a way his recorded promises hadn't.
He'd actually done it. He'd chosen me over everything else. Over his reputation, his comfortable life, his social standing. Over the wife who had manipulated him for years.
Before I could process what that meant, my phone rang. Stefan's name on the screen.
My thumb hovered over the answer button. I'd avoided this for days, convinced that distance was the kindest thing I could offer him.
Time to think. Time to realize he'd made a mistake. Time to come to his senses and go back to his wife, his life, the world he belonged in.
But he hadn't gone back. He'd left.
I answered.
"Lila." Stefan's voice was rough, exhausted, flooded with relief. "Thank God. I thought you'd never pick up."
"I wasn't sure I should."
"Why not?"
I closed my eyes, trying to find words that could explain the tangled mess of guilt and fear and unworthiness that had kept me silent. "Because I'm trying to do the right thing. For once in my life, I'm trying not to be selfish."
"How is shutting me out the right thing?"
"Because you deserve better than this mess, Stefan."
The words tumbled out, all the arguments I'd been rehearsing in my head for days. "Better than a scandal. Better than a twenty-two-year-old who got pregnant by accident and blew up your entire life."
"You didn't blow up my life. You saved it."
"That's not true."
"It is true." His voice was firm, insistent, leaving no room for argument.
"My marriage was dead long before you. I was just too stubborn to admit it. Too committed to the idea of doing the 'honorable' thing, staying the course, pretending everything was fine."
He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. "You showed me what it felt like to actually be seen. To be wanted for who I am, not what I provide."
My throat tightened, tears burning behind my eyes. "Stefan..."
"I'm at the coffee shop on 5th Street. The one where I just met Harper." His voice carried an urgency I couldn't ignore. "Will you come? Please. I need to see you. I need to say this to your face."
Every rational part of me screamed to say no. To protect myself from the inevitable disappointment. To protect him from the mess I'd created. To maintain the distance that kept hope from becoming heartbreak.
But my heart, my stupid, stubborn heart, had already decided.
"Okay," I whispered. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
The coffee shop was half-empty when I arrived, the afternoon crowd thinned to a few scattered customers nursing their drinks.
I spotted Stefan immediately—he was in a corner booth, looking like he hadn't slept in days. Dark circles under his eyes, stubble shadowing his jaw, his usually immaculate appearance disheveled and raw.
When he saw me, he stood so quickly he nearly knocked over his coffee cup. The liquid sloshed dangerously close to the rim before settling.
"Lila."
Just my name, spoken like a prayer, like relief, like coming home.
I slid into the seat across from him, keeping the table between us like a barrier. Like protection against the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me. "I'm here."
"You look exhausted."
"So do you."
A tired smile crossed his face, the first hint of warmth breaking through the worry. "I've had better weeks."
We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on us.
Finally, Stefan reached across the table, his hand open, waiting. An invitation, not a demand.
"I know you're scared," he said quietly. "I know you think you're doing the noble thing by pushing me away. But I need you to understand something."
He paused, making sure I was meeting his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice carried a certainty I'd never heard from him before.
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to wake up one day and regret this. I'm not going to choose Eleanor, or my reputation, or what anyone else thinks."
His gaze held mine, unwavering. "I choose you. I'll keep choosing you. Every single day."
My eyes burned with tears I refused to shed. "How can you be so sure? Everything is such a mess. Harper barely speaks to us. Eleanor is furious. People will talk. They'll say I trapped you, that I'm a gold-digger, that…"
"I don't care what anyone says." Stefan's hand closed gently around mine, warm and steady and real. "I care about you. About our baby. About building a life together."
"But what if it's not enough? What if the mess is too big? What if we can't make this work?"
"Then we figure it out together." His thumb traced circles on my knuckles, soothing and certain. "That's what people do when they love each other, Lila. They don't run away. They stay and fight."
The word hit me like a wave. Love. He'd said it before, in voicemails and whispered confessions, in the dark of night and the chaos of our stolen moments together.
But hearing it now, seeing the certainty in his eyes, the complete absence of doubt, made it impossible to deny.
"I'm terrified," I admitted, my voice cracking on the words. "I've never had something this real before. I don't know how to trust it."
"Then let me teach you." Stefan squeezed my hand. "One day at a time. We don't have to have all the answers right now. We just have to be willing to try."
I looked at our joined hands—his broad and steady, mine small and trembling. Two people who had found each other in the most impossible circumstances. Two people who maybe, against all odds, could make this work.
"Okay," I whispered. "I'll try."
Stefan's smile broke through the exhaustion on his face like sunlight through clouds—brilliant, warm, transforming him into the man I'd fallen in love with years ago.
"That's all I'm asking."
He stood, moved around the table, and pulled me into his arms. I buried my face against his chest, breathing him in, letting myself believe, just for a moment, that everything might actually be okay.
His heart beat steady beneath my ear, a rhythm I wanted to fall asleep to for the rest of my life.
"I love you," Stefan murmured against my hair. "I love you, and I'm not letting you go."
"I love you too," I whispered back, the words fragile and terrifying and true. "I'm just scared of how much."
"That's okay." He held me tighter, his arms a fortress against the world. "We'll be scared together."
We stayed like that for a long time, holding onto each other in a half-empty coffee shop, two people choosing hope over fear.