Page 248 of My Fake Dating with the Grumpiest Highlander
Then she smiles.
“You have paint on your nose.”
I blink.
“That’s what you took from all of this?”
She laughs—a shaky sound halfway between laughter and tears.
“Yes. No. I…”
She shakes her head.
“Finn, what exactly are you doing right now?”
“I’m fighting for you.”
The words are simple.
Direct.
No defenses left.
No hiding.
“I’m willing to fight for us even if I don’t completely know how yet. I spent a year running from Edinburgh, from my guilt, from any chance at happiness. But I’m done punishing myself.”
I lift my hand.
Hesitate.
Then gently cup her cheek.
“I don’t want to run anymore. I want to stay. I want to rebuild that clinic and make it mine. I want to take care of Glenfield’s patients. I want Ragnar to keep mysteriously loving me for reasons I’ll never understand.”
She laughs again.
This time it’s real.
“And I want you, Mary.”
My voice cracks slightly on the last word.
“I want to wake up beside you every morning. I want to make coffee that’s way too strong. I want to hear you complain because I never shut the bathroom door properly. I want all of it. Even the chaos.”
Tears slide freely down her cheeks now.
“Idiot.”
That’s all she says.
But she says it with so much tenderness it simultaneously destroys me and puts me back together.
“That’s it?”
She shakes her head and cups my face in both hands.
“You’re an idiot, Finn McLeod. Because you could’ve told me this three days ago. Or a week ago. Or the second everything fell apart.”
