Mornings had changed.
They no longer started with silence or distance. Now, they began with small things—fingers brushing in bed, coffee shared without words, eyes searching each other across a room and daring to stay.
But trust wasn't something that returned all at once.
It came in fragments—Daniel folding Amelia's apron before she painted. Her reaching for his hand when she hesitated before a blank canvas. Little moments of choosing each other before pride or fear.
Today, Amelia stood behind him, her hands moving over his bare back—not with desire, but with a kind of reverent study. She was sketching him again. Not posing him, not arranging his body for perfection—just observing. Honest. Gentle.
"Do you ever feel like we're trying to rebuild something we never had to begin with?" he asked, voice soft.
She smiled faintly. "No. I think we're finally building it right."
He glanced over his shoulder. "Even after everything?"
She lowered the charcoal, moved to face him. "Especially after everything."
Their mouths met—not with hunger, but with the slow, careful intimacy of people rediscovering how to hold each other. This kiss didn't demand. It listened.
When they parted, Daniel leaned his forehead to hers. "There's something else I haven't told you."
Her body tensed. "Now's the time to stop hiding."
He took a breath. "A journalist has been reaching out. They're writing a piece on you. And me. And the gallery fallout. They've been talking to Julian."
Her heart sank.
"He's trying to frame it all like a scandal. A story about a young artist seduced by her model. About exploitation, manipulation. He's painting me as the predator."
Amelia closed her eyes. "Of course he is."
"I've ignored every call. But it's coming, Amelia. I just… I didn't want it to blindside you."
She stepped back, exhaling slowly, the walls of the studio suddenly feeling smaller. "This is what he does. When he can't control the art, he tries to rewrite the story."
Daniel nodded. "I'll take the fall if I have to. I'll protect you."
"No," she said firmly. "We do this together. He doesn't get to rewrite us."
They stood in the center of the studio, surrounded by unfinished canvases, by memory, by the fragile, beautiful thing they were becoming. The world outside was stirring—ugly and loud—but for now, here, they had this sanctuary.
Amelia looked at Daniel with new clarity.
"If they want a story," she said, her voice steel beneath velvet, "we'll give them one. The real one."
And Daniel, for once, didn't look like he was preparing to run.
He looked like he was ready to stand beside her.