He directed his gaze over the steering wheel, not looking at her. Classic self-protection. “What do you want me to say? That I don’t want you to go? I don’t. That I don’t want things to change? I don’t. But thing is, Chase, you aren’t some girl who lives next door. This isn’t your home. You live in a world that’s far from all this. You’re a girl who hangs with Spencer Rome and reads for parts in a film that could snag an Oscar. You’ve sipped cocktails in Paris, hung out with guys whose records I own, and have a place in Malibu. That’s a whole ’nother life from this one.”

“Yeah, but I’m still who I am.”

This time he looked at her. “I think you believe that now. But it’s easier to believe that here. It took me a long time to figure out my life. To know who I am. I came back here and built a life I’m proud of. I’m mostly content here, and I’m not leaving to go back to a place that wasn’t good for me. I did New York and hated myself. I’m not up for LA.”

Chase gripped the door handle, white-knuckling against the hurt. She wasn’t worth him giving an inch? Obviously, she wasn’t worth risking his comfort for. Emotions she hadn’t felt in a long time flooded her—that prickling shame, that feeling of not being enough. “So when I go back to LA, whatever this thing we had between us is—it’s over? It’s that cut-and-dry?”

Zeke studied her, his pretty green eyes an enigma. He was protecting himself. She understood that inclination. Still, his words were an ultimatum that didn’t sit well with her. Why must everything be on his terms?

“Chase, thing is, I don’t have the right to ask anything of you. You have your life, and I have mine. I let myself get sucked into believing in something that can’t work because, damn, you’re hard to resist. I tried so hard to just be friends, but . . . I want more.”

“So why can’t we . . . try? It’s not that far away.”

He swallowed hard and shifted his gaze away. “Because you’re an actress, and you’re going back to pick up your career and dust it off. That’s your right, maybe your destiny, but I can’t see how you’re going to truly want to keep me around. I’m not the kind of guy who does red carpets. I’m sorry. But I think at this point we have to just stop everything right here.”

His words felt like an arrow through her chest.

You’re not worth it.