Chapter 1 PROLOGUE

The first time Jane Whitmore saw Damien Cole, it was through her kitchen window.

She had flour on her cheek, her blonde hair in a messy bun, and her favorite Motown record spinning low in the background. Her hands were deep in cookie dough-her version of stress therapy after another strained phone call with her mother. That was when she saw him.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark skin that caught the golden afternoon light just right. He was lifting a box out of a moving truck, sweat glistening on his arms, a quiet ease in the way he moved. Jane's heart skipped a beat. She didn't know his name. Not yet. But something inside her stilled.

"New neighbor," she whispered to herself.

Maplewood Lane was the kind of place where things stayed the same. White picket fences, Sunday potlucks, and whispers behind curtains. People mowed their lawns on Saturdays, baked pies on holidays, and kept smiles wide but walls higher. Damien Cole didn't fit the picture.

And that, Jane realized, was exactly why she couldn't stop staring.

****

Three days passed before they spoke. She had baked another batch of cookies-chocolate chip this time, her favorite-and decided to welcome him, like any decent neighbor would. But her palms were sweating, and her heart thudded like a bass drum as she stepped onto his porch.

He opened the door before she knocked, as if he'd sensed her presence.

"Hi," she said, voice smaller than she'd meant.

He smiled, kind but cautious. "Hey."

"I'm Jane. From next door." She lifted the plate like a peace offering. "Thought you might like something sweet."

Damien looked at the cookies, then at her, then smiled fully this time. The kind of smile that made her knees weaken.

"Thanks," he said. "I'm Damien."

Their fingers brushed as he took the plate.

That was the beginning.

****

Jane didn't mean to fall in love. Not with someone who'd turn her life upside down. Not with someone her family would never approve of. But love doesn't care about rules, especially the unwritten ones written in fear and passed down in silence.

They started as friends. Small talk over fences. Coffee cups shared at dawn. Late-night conversations on the porch where they talked about everything-music, art, dreams, and things too deep for daylight.

Damien was a teacher, kind to the core, with a soft voice and a soul full of books. He laughed with his whole chest and listened like the world depended on it. Jane hadn't met someone who saw her like he did-not as a daughter, not as a trophy, but as a woman. A dreamer.

But Maplewood Lane saw something else.

Whispers began. Stares grew colder. Her father stopped visiting. Her mother cried on the phone, pleading, "Think about your future, Jane. Think about what people will say."

But Jane had stopped caring what people said the day Damien looked at her like she was the only thing that made sense in a broken world.

****

Then came the night that changed everything.

They had just come back from a drive-windows down, wind in her hair, his hand in hers across the console. They had kissed under the stars on a backroad where the world didn't watch.

But as they walked up to her door, flashing red and blue lights flooded the driveway.

Police cars. Neighbors in robes. Murmurs in the dark.

"Is this him?" one officer asked coldly.

Jane's heart stopped. "What's going on?"

Someone had filed a complaint. A woman had claimed she'd been followed. Descriptions matched "a tall Black man in a hoodie." No evidence. No name. Just assumption.

Damien stood still, calm but rigid. "I just got here. I've been with Jane all night."

Jane tried to speak, but her voice trembled. "This is insane. He didn't-"

"Ma'am, we need you to step aside."

They handcuffed him anyway.

It didn't matter that she vouched for him. It didn't matter that he was innocent. In that moment, he wasn't a neighbor. He wasn't a teacher. He wasn't her Damien. He was just another Black man in the wrong place.

That night, something inside Jane shattered.

****

It took two days to get him released. No charges. No apology. Just silence.

But the damage had been done.

"I don't want to drag you into this," Damien said, voice low, hands buried in his coat pockets as they stood by the lake. "I see the way people look at you. At us. You don't deserve this."

"And what do you deserve?" she snapped, tears hot in her eyes. "To be alone? To pretend this never happened?"

He turned to her, and the look in his eyes made her ache. "I don't want to lose you. But I won't be the reason you lose everything else."

"I don't care about everything else," she whispered. "I care about you."

That was when he kissed her. Not soft. Not hesitant. But with every ounce of pain, longing, and love he had held back.

She kissed him back like the world might end tomorrow.

---

Love, real love, doesn't bloom in perfect conditions. It grows through storms, through broken glass and bleeding hands. It fights. It scars. It stays.

Jane and Damien had love. But the world around them wasn't ready for it.

And sometimes, even love has to choose-between what feels right and what costs too much.

****

But this isn't the end.

It's only the beginning.

Because sometimes, the neighbor you never expected to love becomes the one person you can't live without.

And sometimes, the greatest risk isn't falling in love-but fighting to keep it.