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“Yeah, I can see that.” I shook my head and taped up another box. “It’s a miracle you didn’t get four concussions a week from stuff falling on your head.”

She laughed. “If I did, would you even have noticed? You and Holden have been pretty lovey-dovey lately.”

I felt my cheeks turn bright red, but I scoffed anyway. “The man is in class for six hours a day and he spends his evenings repairing our deck or assembling decorations. How lovey-dovey can we really be?”

“Yeah, but the deck repair thing is because he’s secretly eighty,” she joked. “He’s certainly grumpy enough.”

My eyes rolled, but I also couldn’t help smiling as I thought about his morning ritual of having coffee with our elderly neighbors. “Don’t let him hear you say that. He’ll call you an ageist. Rex and Tony are both in their early seventies.”

She chuckled. “Well, excuse me.”

As she taped up the next box, I went back to folding a stack of t-shirts, but I felt her watching me and I could practically feel the curiosity pouring out of her. Eventually, once my stack was neatly folded, I turned to face her again, planting my hands firmly on my lips as I arched an eyebrow.

“What?” I asked. “Just tell me what you’re thinking, Tasha.”

“I’m thinking you’re in love with him,” she said softly as she reached into her closet for another handful of hangers. “I also think you two are really good together, but I’ve told you that before, so I won’t say it again.”

“You just did.”

She grinned. “Okay, yes. I had to say again, but it’s only because I’m right. You should see your face when he walks into a room, babe. Hell, you should see his face when you walk in. Have you told him yet?”

“Told him what?”

She huffed out a frustrated breath. “Have you told him that you love him, dummy? What else would I be talking about?”

I put my hands up in front of me and shook them around a little. “Uh-uh. No. Keep your romance away from me. I’m not the heroine in one of your books.”

“Oh, of course not. You just married a billionaire to save your house,” she said. “Then you fell in love with him.”

“I did not fall in love with him,” I protested, but even as I said the words, they tasted so wrong on my tongue that I knew they couldn’t be true. “Okay. Fine. Maybe I did, but I doubt he’d want to hear it.”

She frowned, her head tilting slowly as she looked back at me. “What? How can you even say that? The guy is crazy about you.”

“I don’t know, Tash,” I said, the events of the last few days flashing through my mind like a movie reel. “There’s so much going on with him right now that I don’t know if he’s capable of being crazy about anything, let alone a wife he was contractually obliged to marry.”

She groaned and collapsed on her bed, spreading out between the boxes and propping her chin in her palm. “Are you serious right now? It doesn’t matter what else is going on with him. Trust me, he’s got feelings for you and he’s feeling them.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “Maybe when we’re here, at home, and it’s just us, but Holden never even wanted to get married. He doesn’t believe in happily ever afters and he definitely isn’t going to want to hear that some girl is in love with him when there are so many other issues in his life right now.”

“Sure, except that you’re not just some girl. You’re his wife,” she said pointedly. “You’re the woman he married, even if he never wanted to. He did it anyway and he’s been happy about it. You’ve been happy about it. Why not just both be happy? You both deserve it.”

“We do.” I turned toward the next box I had to pack and carefully laid her jackets into it just to give myself something to do so I wouldn’t burst out crying. “Unfortunately, I think Holden needs to deal with his dad before he’ll be able to be happy, and until he’s happy, I won’t be completely happy. Does that make sense?”

“Wait.” She frowned. “Are you saying you’re not happy?”

“No.” I shoved at a puffy jacket that refused to stay flat. “I am happy. I’m happier than I’ve been in years, but I’m scared to let myself feel it because Court fucking Thayer is hanging over our heads like an ax murderer who can swing that ax at our happiness at any given moment.”

Tasha stared up at me for a long beat, then sighed and sat up on the bed, somehow managing to cross her legs without kicking off any of the boxes. “Okay, but if that’s how you feel, tell him to talk to his dad.”

“I have, but he doesn’t want to. He won’t even consider it.”

“Can you blame him?” she asked calmly, and my eyebrows shot up in surprise, but she carried on before I could answer. “I don’t know how much you remember about the time all that stuff went down with Court Thayer, but it got pretty ugly.”

“I don’t remember much at all, actually. I didn’t even remember the name until you and I picked up that paper.”

Her expression softened with sympathy. “Well, I don’t blame you for that either. You had your own stuff to deal with around that time, but it was bad, Alicia. It was real bad. Maybe Holden just needs some more time.”

“Maybe, and I wish I could make that happen for him, but he doesn’t have much more time. Court is getting out, no matter how Holden feels about it, and I’m worried about what it’s going to do to him if that happens before they’ve cleared the air.”