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“You’re only saying that because everything is blowing up right now.”

Now that pisses me off. She knows me better than that.

“Don’t play the fool right now, Sunny.”

“Come on, Preston. At the end of the day, the only people we fooled were ourselves.”

“That’s a fucking lie,” I snap, and her eyes widen.

“It’s not a lie.”

“It is! This might have started that way, but it’s not now, and you fucking know it, Grace.”

“I don’t know anything other than all of this was supposed to help the lodge, and now it’s doing the complete opposite. All I’ve done is make it worse and lie to everyone. Gah, the exact thing I didn’t want and I did it. I need to fix it.”

“We will. I’ll call Annie right now and⁠—”

“No,” she cuts me off. My gaze jerks to hers. “Don’t call Annie.”

“We need Annie to fix this.”

“You need Annie to fix this. I need you to leave so I can take care of it on my own. The way I should have done it from the start. With complete honesty, not … this.”

“Grace, it’s not that⁠—”

“Please,” she says, her voice higher, as if she’s in pain. “Please leave.”

I swallow and clench my jaw, nodding.

I don’t want to leave, but arguing won’t get us any closer to fixing this.

“For how long? The night?”

Space after a fight might be good. It’s not how I would handle this, but it’s all new for us.

She shakes her head.

“Longer. I need time to … I don’t even know yet.”

“Grace,” I plead and step toward her. She steps back. “Please don’t ask this of me. Don’t push me away. Let me be here for you. We can do this your way and we can⁠—”

“We can’t, Preston. I … I…”

Her tears start to fall, and my heart shatters.

I don’t want to leave, but giving her everything she wants is all I’ve ever wanted. So I quickly pack some clothes.

As soon as I’m in my rental, my mind races, Where should I go? While I wait for that decision to come to me, a text comes through that decides for me.

Dad

You need to come back to LA. Today.

When things feel like they are too good to be true or that the other shoe is about to drop, my advice is to step back and stop making decisions you think can fix it.

I wish someone had told me that a few months ago.

Chapter