Page 58 of Every Shattered Note
“Wait—Rafe showed up?”I cut him off.“You paid him a thousand?He was only going to earn two hundred.”
I can’t help it—I start laughing.It bursts out of me, disbelief and amusement colliding in the small cabin.
“It was the worst negotiation of my life,” he admits, and laughs with me.“Stupid, probably.But I don’t regret it.”
“You lost money.”
“I’d give away my fortune if it meant meeting you all over again,” he says simply.
And that’s the moment I want to punch him.Not because it’s offensive.But because it’s too much.Too sincere.Too impossible.
He’s not supposed to be swoony.Men like him don’t do confessions—they do exits.They drag you into a room, kiss you like gravity’s an option, fuck you until you forget your own name, and disappear before morning.That’s what the stories say.
But Dexter Vaughn isn’t the story.
He hasn’t been anything like that.
He’s been calm when I expected arrogance.Gentle, even careful when I didn’t deserve it.
And it’s terrifying.
Because the more time I spend in this jet, the more I realize he’s not trying to seduce me.He’s trying to know me, to convince me that what he did was a mistake, and regrets it.Not meeting me, but letting the lie linger for so long.
And that might be worse.
The air hums low around us, a constant reminder that we’re somewhere far above the world, trapped together in this impossible pause between who we were before and what comes next.
He turns toward me, eyes unreadable in the dim cabin light, voice low enough that I almost miss it.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
I glance at him, fingers tightening around the armrest.“I don’t know what to believe.”
He nods, like he’s been bracing for that answer the whole time.“Then let me prove it.”
“Prove what?”I whisper.“You said it yourself—once we’re back in Seattle, this ends.Well, you didn’t say that exactly, but let’s be honest.I can’t be part of your world.”
He doesn’t look away when I say that.He remains calm.
“I don’t want you to be part of my world.”His words are not what I expect but I brace for the ‘this is just a fling,’ until he says, “I want to move into yours.”
He leans forward, slow and careful, as if he’s about to hand me something fragile.His hands reach for mine, just brushing against my fingers until I let him take them.His palms are warm.His thumb drags across my knuckles.
My breath stutters.I try to pull away, but he holds on—not forcefully.Just enough to keep me tethered.
“I want to be where you are.I want to show up at your apartment early in the morning with coffee you didn’t ask for, just to see how you light up when you're in your element.I want to sit through wedding rehearsals and listen to you complain about tulle and last-minute changes.I want to learn how you organize your playlists, what scent you keep in your car, how you take your tea when you’re overwhelmed.”
He swallows hard, voice roughening slightly.“I don’t want the tour bus or the press circuit or whatever the hell people think my life is supposed to look like.I want your Monday mornings.I want the version of me that only exists when I’m around you.”
My throat tightens.I can’t move.Can’t blink.
He leans back slowly, but his gaze never leaves mine.
“You make me feel like I’m not just someone people tolerate because they have to.You make me feel like I’m ...”He exhales, eyes aching.“Someone you’d choose.And that?That’s everything to me.”
My breath catches somewhere in my throat.I don’t know where to put it.How to breathe through it.
“Dex ...”I whisper his name, barely a sound.It comes out softer than I meant it to, like it cracked off something inside me.“Never ever.”
