"This is all a head fuck, Harper." His knuckles go white on the steering wheel. "You've strolled back in, dropped a bomb, and I don't know what to do about it. Because I want you so damn bad, I can't even think straight. But you said it yourself. You gotta go back to LA. You gotta pretend to marry your boss. I’m not quite sure where I fit in that picture. Or if you even need me in the picture at all anymore."
He pulls onto the dirt track that leads to my parents' ranch.
"This was exactly why I wanted to keep my distance from you," I mutter under my breath.
Shit. That came out wrong. “I-I don’t mean.”
He slams the brakes. The truck skids and rocks to a stop. He turns to face me.
"Easier that way, ain't it? When you don't have to come face-to-face with your emotions? When you can just avoid the heartbreak. Walk away and not even glance back."
"I didn't mean it like that. I mean, if I stayed away from you, you wouldn't be this hurt. What you don't know can't hurt you. And Ace, I really don’t want to hurt you."
He grips the steering wheel so hard it creaks. "It always hurts me. Staying away hurts me worse, Goldie."
The cab shrinks. The music is too loud. He's too close, too big, too everything.
"I don't know how to win this one with you, Ace." I grab the door handle. "I'm in a fake engagement to get a case that means I can protect you. End of story. I don't love him. I don't want him. I didn’t ask to be kidnapped, to end up in this truck with you. I’m trying, trying really hard to keep it together. I only ever wanted you to be happy, Ace. That’s why I left in the first place."
I shove the door open. Because, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I left because I thought I’d ruin his future. But this is why I stay away. Because Ace Sterling is a man who does nothing by halves, especially when it comes to me, even if it means losing himself. But leaving, staying away, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
"Goldie, wait?—"
I hop down onto the dirt. The air hits me, it’s like fire hitting my skin. I turn back to him.
"It has never been anyone else, Ace." My voice cracks, and I let it. "It hurt me too. I thought it was the right thing to dofor both of us. And I'm sorry. I fucked that up. I keep fucking it up. I'll probably continue to do so, because that is who I am." I swallow. "But that doesn't change the fact. It will always be you. You don’t just fit in the picture, Ace. You are the entire goddamn painting."
I slam the door. Turn on my heel and stomp toward the house.
Fighting back the tears. Again. Always fighting back the stupid tears when it comes to this man. Because I just can’t get it right.
I make it twenty steps.
And then I stop.
Because this is it. This is the pattern. The cycle I keep letting happen. Things get hard. I run. I destroy everything behind me and spend the next six years pretending the wreckage isn't mine.
I ran at twenty, and it nearly killed us both.
I'm not doing it again.
I turn around.
Ace is already out of the truck. Not at the door. Not leaning against the hood. He's walking toward me. Five steps away. Four. Three. Like he knew. Like he's always known that I'd stop. That I'd turn. That the girl who runs would eventually run out of road and realize the only direction that ever made sense was back to him.
We don't say a word.
I run.
Not away from him this time. To him. Exactly how I was always meant to.
He catches me. He grabs my face with one hand, the other into my hair. I tug him closer by his T-shirt, and his mouth crashes against mine.
My world detonates and like that, everything begins to make sense again.
Six years. Six years of silence and distance and unanswered texts and sleepless nights. Six years of carrying his name inside me like a wound I refused to let heal because healing meant forgetting, and I would rather bleed forever than forget a single second of loving Ace Sterling.
It all breaks. Right here. In the dirt. Fifty steps from my parents' front door.
