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Step back, protect yourself.

“Yeah, uh. Yes. I’ll go to Hannah’s, spend time with her.”

I do step back, literally, and look around at the bags on the floor. I won’t need the one I was almost done packing for myself, but Tucker will need the ones for the boys.

I bend over to pick it up.

“Here, you’ll need this.”

“Sunny—”

“You should get on the road soon. I bet there’s gonna be lots of traffic.”

“We can drive you⁠—”

“No need.”

I can’t take any more of him being thoughtful and wonderful. Instead, I face him with a smile—a fake one, but hey.

“I’ll call a cab, but you and Wes should head out. Spend the day at the beach with your family, Tucker. I’m okay. It’s over, right?”

Please tell me it’s not all actually over, I want to beg.

Maybe he hears me, maybe it’s just more of him being too good to me, but he cups my cheeks and kisses me softly.

“Enjoy your day with your sister,” he tells me, his smile kind. “I’m going to keep doing everything I can to protect you, and eventually I’ll find a way to convince you that the people closest to us finding out about what’s between us isn’t a bad thing.”

He leaves before I can ask how he plans on doing that, before it registers that he’s actually⁠—

It’s not all over.

Though maybe I’m the one who’s going to have to convince Tucker that maybe it should be.

Shouldn’t it?

I swear I had reasons, good, logical reasons why we couldn’t—can’t be anything.

Why can’t I think of a single one right now?

I don’t tell Hannah—about the PI and the messages and threats.

It’s all fixed now, so what would be the point?

Telling her about Tucker on the other hand . . . the words get stuck in my throat around seven hundred times during the day.

In the evening, she insists that she and Barry have to drive me back to the city—she wants to spend as much time with me as possible, since my niece or nephew is going to be here anytime now.

Apparently, Barry begged her not to drive anymore this past week, so he’s along for the ride, and I couldn’t ever look him in the eye again if he witnessed the conversation that would ensue if I opened my big sentimental mouth.

Confessing to my own stupidity somehow seems like the best idea to my brain. The impulse is there, breathing and pulsing under my skin for hours and hours. But I manage.

If falling madly in love with your boss of less than a month isn’t stupid, then I don’t know what is.

Maybe batshit crazy is a better definition, or certifiably insane.

Nope, stupid is better. Simple, easy to understand, right to the point.

I am very, very stupid.