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I tried to step around her, but she moved faster than I expected. She sidestepped, blocking my path again, her hand shooting out to grab my wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong, her fingers digging into my skin. "Put the phone down, Ben."

"Sutton, let go."

"No." She glared up at me, her blue eyes blazing with a fire that burned through my defenses. "If you make this call—if you decide for me that I have to leave, if you override my choice because you think you know what’s best for me—then you are no different than Nash."

The accusation hit me with the force of a sledgehammer. I recoiled, jerking my arm back. "Don’t say that. I am nothing like him. He wants to control you. I want to save you."

"That is exactly what he says!" she shouted, her voice cracking. "He says he’s saving me from myself. He says I’m too fragile to handle the world, so he has to make the hard choices for my own good. And now here you are, standing in this hallway and telling me that I’m too stupid to understand the risks, so you have to make the decision for me."

"I’m not calling you stupid," I said, my voice shaking. "I’m calling you a target. And I’m the bullseye."

"I don’t care! I don’t care if you have a record. I would rather stand in the fire with you than watch you from a safe distance while you burn alone."

She shoved against my chest with both hands, not hard, more to wake me up. "Don’t you get it? This isn’t about safety anymore. If I leave because I’m scared, Nash wins. If I leave because you make me, Nash wins. The only way I win is if I choose. And I am choosing to stay and fight this... with you."

She was vibrating with intensity, her chest heaving, her face flushed. She wasn’t the fragile girl from the swamp or the polished superstar. She was a warrior, and she was fighting for us.

I wanted to say yes. God, every cell in my body screamed at me to drop the phone, to pull her into my arms, to bury my face in her neck and let her strength hold us both up. I wanted to believe that what we felt for each other was enough to beat the legal system, the media machine, and the weight of my own history.

Then the image of my mugshot flashed through my mind again. The split lip. The rage. If she stayed, they would depose me. They would drag me onto a stand and make me recount every punch I threw. They would paint me as a monster, and by extension, they would paint her as a woman attracted to monsters—a woman too sick to know better.

I couldn’t be the reason she lost her voice.

I couldn’t be the cage.

I had to break us to save her. And the only way to make her leave—the only way to make her accept the car I was about to call—was to make her believe that I didn’t want her anymore. I had to become the villain she accused me of being.

So I visualized two blast doors slamming shut in my mind, sealing away the emotion, the hope, and the heat of the last week. I let my face go cold and my posture shift from desperate to distant.

"You’re romanticizing this." My voice was flat, devoid of the heat that had been there seconds ago.

Sutton blinked, confusion flickering in her eyes. "What?"

"You’re caught up in the drama," I stepped back from her to create physical distance. "The storm. The hideout. The rescue. It feels intense, so you think it’s real. But it’s not real, Sutton. It’s a trauma bond. Adrenaline."

"Don’t do that," she whispered, shaking her head. "Don’t you dare psychoanalyze this. You know what’s between us. You felt it last night."

"Last night was a mistake," I lied. The words burned my throat, but I forced them out. "We were stuck in the dark. We were stressed. It happened. But looking at it now... in the light of day... with helicopters over my roof and my face on TMZ?" I shook my head, letting a cruel, dismissive laugh escape my lips. "I can’t handle this circus, Sutton. I’m a paramedic. I live a quiet life. I fix trucks. I drink beer on my porch. I don’t do press conferences. I don’t do lawyers. I don’t want this."

Sutton went still. Her hands dropped to her sides. The fire in her eyes dimmed, replaced by a cold, dawning horror. "You don’t want... this?"

"I don’t want the baggage," I said, twisting the knife. "I helped you because you were hurt. I gave you a place to stay. But this?" I gestured to the phone, to the window, to the chaos outside. "It’s too much. You said it yourself. Nash destroys everything he touches. I’m not going to let him destroy my life just because I slept with you."

It was a low blow. It was cruel. It reduced everything we had shared—the dinners, the piano, the shower, the laughter—to a one-night stand and a liability calculation.

The light went out of her face and the strength drained out of her posture. She looked, for the first time since the wreck, truly broken.

"You’re lying," she murmured, but her voice lacked conviction. She was searching my face for the truth, for the man who had held her hand on the dock, but I didn’t let her find him. I gave her the stone wall.

"I’m not lying. I’m waking up. And you need to wake up too. If you stay here, you’ll end up resenting me when the cameras don’t go away. Go back to your life. You need to fight Nash with your lawyers, not with a washed-up fighter from the Keys. I want no part of that."

I gripped the burner phone tight. "I’m calling Mindy. I’m telling her to send the car to the service road in twenty minutes. Be packed."

Sutton stared at me for a long, agonizing second. I prayed she would scream. I prayed she would slap me. I prayed she would see through the lie and refuse to move.

But she didn’t. She nodded slowly, a jerky, mechanical movement.

"Okay." Her voice was hollow, stripped of all emotion. "Fine. Call Mindy."