The jazz club hasn't changed.
It's the same dim lighting. The same worn wooden bar. The same stage where a piano player no one recognizes performs for an audience that doesn't care. Scarlett used to come here before everything broke. Before Alexander. Before her father. Before she learned that people she loved could become strangers overnight.
She sits at a corner table with a glass of wine and realizes something that changes everything.
Life already broke her.
Cameron didn't break her. Her fiancé broke her. Her father broke her. Her friends broke her. Life itself broke her into a thousand pieces and left her sleeping in a car.
Cameron just caught some of the pieces as they fell. He just tried to gather them up and put them back together without asking permission. That's not love destroying her. That's love manifesting as control because he's terrified of loss.
She understands that now.
And maybe that's the point. Maybe real love isn't supposed to be safe. Maybe it's supposed to be terrifying. Maybe it's supposed to feel like standing at the edge of a cliff and choosing to jump because the alternative is never flying.
She drinks her wine and makes a decision.
She pulls out her phone and finds his number. Her hands are shaking. The moment she says this out loud, everything changes. There's no going back to the safety of their arrangement. There's no return to the distance that protected them both.
She calls him.
He picks up on the first ring. Like he's been waiting for her to call.
"Scarlett," he says, and his voice cracks on her name.
"I know why you pushed me away," she says. The words come out steady. "I understand the fear. I understand the control. I understand that you were trying to protect me from your worst parts. But Cameron, you don't get to protect me from my own choice. You don't get to make my decisions for me. You don't get to decide who I love."
He's quiet. She can hear him breathing.
"I choose you," she continues. "Real. Messy. Broken. All of it. I choose the man who remembers my coffee order and the man who lies to himself about Victoria. I choose the man who can't admit he cares and the man who's been funding my survival since day one. I choose all of it. All of you."
Cameron breathes like he's been holding his breath for weeks. Like he's been drowning and she just threw him a line.
"Scarlett, I don't know how to do real," he says. His voice is raw. "I don't know how to love someone without trying to control them. I don't know how to be vulnerable without building walls. I don't know how to not destroy the people I care about."
"Then learn," Scarlett says. "Learn with me. We'll figure it out together. We'll mess it up together. We'll fail together. But Cameron, we'll do it together instead of apart. And that's worth the risk."
The silence that follows is different.
It's not the silence of walls. It's not the silence of distance. It's the silence of two people finally on the same side. The silence of acceptance. The silence of someone finally being seen and chosen anyway.
"Okay," Cameron says quietly. "Okay. I'll learn. With you."
"I'm coming to you," Scarlett says. "I'm coming to your place and we're going to sit and talk like real people. No walls. No protection. No pretense. Just us."
"Okay," he says again, and she can hear the smile in his voice. The first real smile she's heard from him. The one that isn't performed or strategic. The one that's just relief and love and terror and hope all at once.
She hangs up and sits back in her chair at the jazz club.
For the first time in months, she feels like she might actually survive this. Not just survive. Thrive. With him.
Her phone buzzes.
An unknown number. She frowns. Her inbox shows a text, not a call.
"Cameron's little arrangement is very interesting. Maybe the media should know how fake your love really is. — V"
The words feel like ice water in her veins.
Victoria.
Victoria knows.
Scarlett's hands go numb. She reads it again. And again. The message is clear. Victoria isn't asking. She's threatening. She's going to expose the fake engagement. She's going to tell the world that Scarlett and Cameron were lying the whole time.
Which means Scarlett's reputation—the reputation he's spent weeks rebuilding—will be destroyed again. She'll be the girl who lied. The girl who was paid to be someone's fiancée. The girl who's a liar and a fraud on top of everything else.
She'll lose everything. Again.
Her phone rings. Cameron.
"Did you get a message," he asks before she can speak.
"Yes," Scarlett whispers.
"From Victoria," he says. It's not a question.
"She knows," Scarlett says. "She knows it's fake. She's threatening to go public."
Cameron is quiet for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is different. Colder. Strategic. The businessman replacing the man she just agreed to build a life with.
"She wants leverage," he says. "She wants something from me. She wouldn't threaten without wanting a return."
"What do you mean," Scarlett asks.
"It means," Cameron says slowly, "that she's not just trying to destroy you. She's trying to control me. She's using you as a weapon, which means she knows you matter to me. She knows you're not just some contract anymore."
Scarlett's breath catches.
"That's good," he says. "That means we have options. That means we can negotiate."
"Cameron," Scarlett says. "I just chose you. I just told you I was in. And now—"
"Now we go to war," he says quietly. "But we go together. And Scarlett, I promise you, I will not let her destroy what we just built. I will burn this entire city down before I let her take you from me."
The fierceness in his voice is terrifying.
But it's not the terrifying she's afraid of anymore.
This is the kind of terrifying that means he's finally fighting for them instead of against her.
"What do we do," she asks.
"First," Cameron says, "you come here. You come home to me. And we figure out the rest when we're together. We don't face this apart. Not anymore."
Scarlett looks around the jazz club. The piano player is finishing his set. The audience is already forgetting him. Life moves on. People move on.
But some people, she thinks. Some people stay. Some people choose you. Some people fight for you.
Cameron chose her.
Now she has to trust that choice is real.
She ends the call and stands.
As she walks toward the door, her phone buzzes again.
Another message from Victoria: "You have 48 hours to convince Cameron to give me what I want. Or the engagement is public history. Your call, Scarlett. Though we both know you don't have a choice anymore."
Scarlett looks at the message.
Victoria thinks she's won. Victoria thinks she's put Scarlett in an impossible position. Victoria thinks she's destroyed them before they even started.
But Scarlett is done being broken by other people's choices.
She's done being invisible.
She's done letting fear win.
She calls Cameron back.
"Whatever Victoria wants," she says, "tell her no. Tell her that we're real. Tell her that we're choosing each other. And tell her that she can try to destroy us, but she won't. Because this time, we're fighting back. Together."
Cameron's breathing changes. She can hear the smile return to his voice.
"Okay," he says. "Okay. Let's burn it down."
For the first time, Scarlett isn't afraid of the fire.
She's ready to walk through it with him.