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Levi rubbed at his chest and kept backing away as I came closer. I wanted to have this conversation once and for all. I wanted to throw myself in his arms and cry, and I wanted him to kiss my forehead and tell me everything was going to be all right, that he was here with me, in the ruins of our childhood dreams.

“Levi, please.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” He shook his head. He wrenched open the door and darted down the hallway. I couldn’t breathe. He was running away again.

I slumped down on the chaise longue and numbly took it all in from the enormous marble fireplace to the four-poster bed, hung with brocade curtains, and the bathroom that was bigger than my bedroom. It seemed so empty.

Yesterday, I would have done anything to get rid of Levi this weekend, but now I just wanted him to come back.

Chapter 16

Levi

Whoever first said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions must have had me in mind. It could be the title of my autobiography.

I’d come here with the best intentions, but had brought my bad luck with me. It was a miracle that Indy and was still in one piece, that her crazy friend hadn’t sent their car plummeting down the side of a mountain.

Now I felt like I was suffocating. I took off past the gardens with their fountains and neat hedges and struck off into the wooded area we’d driven through. My breath came in shallow bursts, my lungs struggling to expand. It was a familiar sensation. The first time it happened was when I’d found out that my mom’s cancer had returned. And then a week after she passed, it happened again. I’d been swinging on the monkey bars in the playground and landed an absolute killer back flip, and I couldn’t wait to tell her . . . and then I remembered that I couldn’t.

She was gone and I was alone.

That’s when I first felt it—the abyss. Like a black hole beneath me, a shadowy presence with tentacles coiling around my legs, my gut, my throat, forcing the air from my lungs, pulling me down, down. I’d laid down in the grass and stared up at the sky, fixing my gaze on the hazy moon, visible in the clear blue sky and willed myself toward it until I was able to breathe again.

It happened again the day we lost Josh. I’d woken up that morning with the worst hangover, unable to fly. Stayed in bed all day feeling sorry for myself. Then came the knock on my door. The floor fell out beneath me, and I was sinking again. It was supposed to be me.

I sank down against the rough bark of a tree trunk and looked up in the sky, searching for it. The moon. And there she was, nearly full and almost transparent in the cloudless sky.

I gasped for breath, unable to erase the vision of the Jeep swerving around the bend from my mind. Crazy as it seemed, when I was flying a mission in my jet, I was more relaxed than I had been in those three hours following Sabrina, who apparently believed she was an F1 pilot.

We were less than a week away from October 21, and here I was not learning from past mistakes. Making more bad decisions. Whatever foolhardy, egotistical longing had led me to blow off my meeting with my commander so I could drive here today was so tragically misplaced. I’d convinced myself that Indy needed me and forced myself into her life because being with her made me feel whole again, not like some shadowy version of my former self. I’d kissed her and it had been awful. And yet it had awakened something in me, a need to be near her, a desire to do it again. But I couldn’t. I’d only bring more chaos into her life.

I closed my eyes, and a new determination took hold of me. To do what I should have done in the first place: leave. She didn’t really want me here. I was just a reminder of our past. Besides she didn’t want me—she wanted the fantasy Levi, the perfect fiancé version that I could never live up to.

Crows cawed overhead. I stood numbly, wiping damp leaves from my pants and started back toward the house. As I neared the edge of the woods, I heard a familiar voice.

Professor Popinjay. He was pacing, tracing a path back and forth in a small clearing, phone to his ear. “Yes, I understand. I’ve been trying to get more information, but she’s so damn willful. I think we should go with the original site. And it’s imperative that no one gets wind of this until I can come out myself.”

I stepped on a twig and it cracked. His head snapped in my direction.

“Leon,” he said, sliding his phone into his pocket. “How long have you been there?”

Long enough to know you’re up to something. “Just passing through. I was heading for the house but got turned around.”

He pointed behind him. “The villa is back there. I’m going back myself. Claudia is anxious that everyone arrive on time for the match.”

“The match?” I asked.

“Croquet. She always acts like it’s a wonderful surprise that we start the weekend off with a game. Never mind that every year, it’s the same thing. People can be so terribly predictable.”

“Umm, I know what you mean. Some people are terribly transparent,” I agreed as I followed him along the worn trail that led through the trees.

“Do be careful in these woods,” he continued. “There are some wild boar about.”

“Apparently some snakes too,” I offered and he stopped in his tracks.

“If you’ve something to say, Leroy, please don’t hold back.”

God did I ever want to lay into him, but I’d promised Diana I’d behave, and I didn’t want to jeopardize her chances this weekend. “All right, Diana doesn’t want to be part of your documentary. Think you could let her off the hook?”