Chapter 64 — Don’t Make Me Smaller

Grant was the one who brought up the end of the visit.

They were alone in the common room after the last review notes had been collected. The visiting Alpha and his party had gone to their quarters. Caleb had taken the corrected copy of the agreement to check one final contact name.

Grant stood by the table, turning a page between his fingers.

“He’ll leave once this is finished.”

Hallie looked up.

“I know.”

“And if you decide later that you want something different—”

She put her pen down. Grant stopped. Hallie waited for him to finish.

“If you decide you want a life I can’t give you, I won’t use the marriage to keep you here.”

The words were careful. Too careful. Hallie leaned back.

“You keep doing that.”

Grant’s brow tightened. “Doing what?”

“Talking about us like the marriage is a door you promised not to lock.”

“I did promise that.”

“Yes. And I’m glad you did.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Hallie looked at the ring on her hand.

The marriage had begun as an agreement. Protection. Distance from Bellamy Creek. Something solid between herself and a life other people had already decided for her.

That was true. It was not the whole truth anymore.

“The problem is that you keep describing leaving as if I’d only be ending a contract.”

Grant went still. Hallie stood.

“If I left Cedar Draw now, I would lose things.”

“You wouldn’t lose your work here because of me.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Grant’s jaw shifted. Hallie came around the table.

“I would lose mornings arguing with Caleb over a board no one thinks belongs to me until they need an answer from it. I would lose people who disagree with me to my face and still bring me the next problem. I would lose a place where I had to earn trust instead of inheriting a title.”

Grant listened without interruption.

“And I would lose you.”

The room seemed to contract around the sentence. Grant did not reach for her. He did not ask what she meant.

Hallie was grateful. She was not ready to turn the words into something larger just because they were true.

She stepped closer.

“You talk like the kindest thing you can do is make sure I know I can walk away without hurting you.”

“I don’t want my feelings to become a debt.”

“They aren’t.”

“Hallie—”

“No.”

She caught his hand. Grant fell silent.

Hallie looked down at their joined hands. She had meant only to stop him from retreating into another careful argument.

She did not let go.

“You being important to me is not a debt,” she said. “It is not pressure. And it is not something you get to erase because you think it makes my choices cleaner.”

His fingers shifted under hers. Still no grip strong enough to hold her there.

“What we have would cost me to leave,” Hallie continued. “That doesn’t mean I’m trapped. It means it matters.”

Grant’s expression changed so slightly she might have missed it months ago. Now she knew his silence when something had reached him too deeply for an immediate answer. Hallie held his hand longer than the point required.

She could feel the warmth of his palm, the roughness along his fingers, the simple fact of him staying still while she chose the contact.

“The other Alpha can offer me a life that fits in ways this one doesn’t,” she said.

Grant’s gaze dropped. Hallie tightened her fingers.

“Look at me.”

He did.

“I’m not going to insult him by pretending that offer is meaningless.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“I know.”

“And I’m not going to use our marriage as the reason you should refuse it.”

“I know that too.”

“Then what are you asking from me?”

Hallie let out a breath.

“For you to stop making yourself smaller so I can compare you more easily.”

Grant stared at her.

“That isn’t what I’m trying to do.”

“It is what you’re doing.”

Hallie lifted their joined hands slightly.

“You keep telling me what he has that you don’t. You keep explaining how reasonable it would be if I wanted something else. You keep offering me an exit before I’ve asked for one.”

Grant’s mouth flattened.

“I thought that was respect.”

“It can be.”

Hallie stepped close enough that their hands rested between them.

“But if you only respect the part of me that could leave, you ignore the part that keeps choosing to stay.”

For several heartbeats, Grant held the silence. Hallie did not rescue him from it.

Finally, he asked, “What do you want me to understand?”

No demand hid inside the question. Hallie looked at him.

“That this is real to me.”

His breathing changed.

“Our marriage?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it started the way it did.”

“Yes.”

“Even with Austin—”

“The bond still exists.”

Grant nodded once. Hallie continued before he could retreat from the fact.

“And this still exists too.”

She pressed her thumb against the side of his hand. Not a promise about forever. Not a declaration she was not ready to make.

Only the truth available now. Grant looked at their hands. Then back at her.

“All right.”

Hallie almost laughed from the relief.

“That’s all?”

“What else am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know.”

His mouth moved at one corner.

“You told me to listen.”

“I did.”

“So I’m listening.”

Hallie stayed where she was.

Grant did not ask whether she loved him. He did not ask whether she would choose him over the other Alpha. He did not ask for certainty she did not have.

His hand remained open in hers. After a while, Hallie realized she no longer had any reason to keep holding it. She kept holding it anyway.

Grant’s fingers finally closed around hers. Gently. Hallie let them.

Hallie was done letting Grant pretend their marriage meant nothing simply because he refused to use it as leverage.

Tomorrow, the visiting Alpha would still be young, respected, and easy for every traditional pack to understand. That easier life would still be across the table.