Your lungs burned, but you didn’t stop running.

The soft thud of your shoes on pavement, the weight of the forgotten gift still clenched in your fist—it all blurred into the ache inside your chest. You couldn’t even see straight, your vision smeared with tears you couldn’t hold back. You didn’t care where you were going. You just needed to get away from that. From her. From him.

From the image of Simon, still and caught in a moment you’d never forget.

“Wait!” His voice tore through the air behind you. Closer now.

You didn’t slow down. “Don’t.”

But he didn’t stop either.

You were just about to cross the park when a hand caught your wrist—gentle, but firm. “Please—please, just stop for a second.”

“Let go of me, Simon,” you choked, yanking your arm free, your back turned to him. “Just—just go back. To her. Whoever the hell she is.”

“No,” he said, breathless, and his voice cracked, the word breaking somewhere deep. “It’s not what you think. Please, I swear to you, I didn’t kiss her. I—I didn’t even see it coming.”

You finally turned around, your face flushed and soaked, chest heaving with every shattered breath. “But you didn’t stop it, either! I saw you!”

“I was about to! The second I saw you—bloody hell, my heart dropped,” he rasped, his hands shaking at his sides. “I was gonna push her off, I was, but then I saw you, and you looked at me like I’d killed something inside you, and I—I didn’t know what to do—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” You turned again, but he stepped in front of you, not blocking you, just there—present and breaking in a way you’d never seen before.

And then… he cried.

Not silently. Not subtly.

Simon Riley—the same man who had survived war, loss, and every horror the world could throw at a human being—was crying. His voice cracked as he tried to keep speaking, but the words tangled in his throat. His shoulders trembled, his hand reaching out, not to grab, but to beg.

“I love you,” he said, and it wasn’t smooth or composed—it was broken. Desperate. “God, I love you. More than I ever thought I could love anyone. And if I lose you—if you walk away thinking I’d ever do that to you—”

“Simon—” your voice wavered, soft, weak, trembling like his.

“I can’t lose you,” he whispered, stepping closer. “Not you. Please… don’t leave. Please stay. Just listen. Just for a minute. Please.”

You stood there, frozen between the part of you still hurting and the part of you that had always known Simon. The man behind the mask. The one who never let anyone in until you. And now he was in front of you, completely bare. Crying. For you.