But Jacob knew how holding on ended. It ended with the other party letting go and pushing him firmly—embarrassingly—away. He was thirty years old and he knew what he needed. He needed honesty, he needed simplicity, he needed not to be ambushed by situations like this because his relationship was a moment of pity that had spun out of control. And most of all, he needed someone who would stay. Someone just like him.

So he made himself cold, cold, cold. What a shame this frost didn’t bring numbness. “You don’t need to worry about me. I don’t need you,” he repeated. “I have never needed you, Eve.” I have never needed anyone. “And honestly, I’m pleased you have another option. Perhaps you’ll be better suited to your . . . party planning than you are to what you do here.”

Her jaw hardened, those beautiful eyes narrowing. “I’m good at what I do here, Jacob.”

He couldn’t bring himself to lie on that score, not knowing how she worried about failure. Even though he shouldn’t care, at this point. “Yes, you’re good. But that doesn’t make you irreplaceable.” He felt a bit sick, saying that, but he couldn’t not. Eve’s life here was replaceable to her, after all.

Although she wasn’t reacting that way. Not quite. She jerked back at his words as if he’d slapped her, and then she took a step forward with her hands curled into fists and said, “Really? So if I just—left. You’d be fine. That’s what you’re saying?”

She must know the answer was absolutely not, but he wouldn’t humiliate himself by saying it out loud. He looked her up and down, as detached as he could manage. Her T-shirt today said BEE SWEET, the words surrounded by embroidered little bees. But he’d tried sweet, and he’d ended up stung.

This whole time—this whole fucking time, she’d been here out of obligation. And whatever had changed between them, it hadn’t changed enough, not in the ways that mattered. Not in the ways that said out loud and without doubt, This person is mine.

He would’ve screamed that in the street for her, and he knew it was irrational, but it was also him. And he couldn’t change that.

“I was fine without you before,” he said, “and I’ll be fine again.”

The words should’ve felt like satisfaction. But as she flinched away from him, as she turned on her heel and stormed back to her family, as they gathered her belongings and bundled her into a car and drove her far, far away . . .

Jacob couldn’t shake the nagging feeling he’d just thoroughly fucked himself.

Chapter Twenty

It was funny how much could change in twenty-four hours.

According to the clock in Jacob’s office, it was a little past 1 A.M., and he was absolutely certain that this time yesterday he’d been dizzily blissful with Eve. Or maybe just sleeping next to Eve, which was basically the same thing. Either way, he’d been happy, totally unaware that he and Castell Cottage both were a temporary obligation. That he was making a fool of himself. That the feelings he incited in others would never reach the senseless heights of his own emotions.