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Because while I was grateful he wasn’t letting me face them alone, if he was by my side, then he’d be right there when the truth came out—about the accident, about Bryce, about the girl I used to be before I killed my brother and destroyed everything.

He’d hear all of it. And then he’d know.

He’d know that the confident, vivacious Sam he thought he knew was a lie. A character I’d been playing for five years because the real Sam was too broken and guilty to show to anyone.

He’d know I was a fake.

How would he look at me then?

Would he look at me the way my parents did—like seeing me was a wound that never healed? Would he pull away, unable to touch me without thinking about what I’d done?

Or worse—would he stay? Would he look at me with pity, that awful sympathetic gaze that made me want to claw out of my own skin? Would he treat me like someone fragile and damaged, someone less than the woman he’d thought I was?

I didn’t know which would be harder to bear.

Harry’s arms tightened around me, like he could sense the spiral happening inside my head. Maybe he could. He’d always been too perceptive for his own good.

“Hey.” His voice was gentle but firm. “Whatever you’re thinking right now—stop.”

A watery laugh escaped me. “Mind reader.”

“I don’t have to read minds. I know you.” His hand came up to cup the back of my head, holding me against his chest like I was something precious. Something worth protecting.

If only he knew how wrong he was.

“We should probably get up,” I said, even though every fiber of my being was screaming to stay exactly where I was. “Before someone comes looking for us.”

“Probably,” he agreed, but neither of us moved.

We lay there for another minute, maybe two, wrapped up in each other while the gray Seattle morning light filtered through the curtains. In this moment, I could almost pretend everything was okay. That I was just a girl in the arms of a boy she was falling for—even if she could never really have him. That my past wasn’t waiting downstairs, ready to swallow me whole.

But we couldn’t hide up here forever.

So I took a breath, pressed one last moment of his warmth into my memory, and pulled away.

Time to face another day in hell.

NINE

I thought I knew what uncomfortable silence felt like. I’d grown up in the Gordon household, after all, where dinner conversations were more like board meetings and affection came with conditions attached. I’d sat through enough meals where the only sounds were silverware on china and the occasional pointed comment steeped in passive aggression.

But sitting at dinner last night and now breakfast this morning with the Lowe family made those Gordon dinners feel like a party.

The kitchen was bright and cheerful—canary yellow walls, white cabinets, and a window above the sink that let in the gray Seattle morning light. There were Christmas decorations everywhere, including a small ceramic tree on the counter, a wreath of dried oranges and cinnamon sticks hanging on the pantry door, lights around the window, not to mention all the little snowman and Santa figurines placed around the room. It was the kind of kitchen you’d see in a home design magazine, something right out of Martha Stewart.

The people sitting in it, however, were anything but.

When Sam and I had come downstairs, we’d followed voices into the kitchen. Then we’d walked in and it was like someone had hit a mute button. The conversation didn’t just pause—it evaporated. Sally’s face went carefully neutral as she turned back to the stove. Greg suddenly became very interested in the newspaper. Even Jordan, who’d been the cause of this whole visit, seemed to struggle for something to say, and with a small nod, grabbed another piece of the paper and started reading.

Only Eric had smiled wide at Sam and gestured for her to come sit by him.

Now we sat around the table with plates of eggs, bacon, and toast that no one seemed to have much appetite for. The scrape of forks against plates sounded deafening in the quiet. Someone moved slightly and the leg of their chair scraped across the floor.

I’d never wanted to fill a silence so badly in my life, and I was a man who appreciated silence.

Sam sat next to me, her posture perfect and her expression blank. She looked like a statue, but that wasn’t quite right either because even art sculptures emoted more than she was right now.

I wanted to reach for her, to thread my fingers through hers and remind her she wasn’t alone. But something told me that would only make things worse. That any acknowledgment of her discomfort would shatter whatever fragile equilibrium was keeping this meal from imploding.