Even as he said it, he realized how much he didn’t want her to leave, no matter how upset he’d been by her revelation in the hot tub this morning. Something incredible had happened between them last night, and he wasn’t ready to turn his back on it just because she’d shaken his whole view of their past together. They’d been too quick to call it quits the first time. What if they kept things simple this time? Instead of worrying about how they would fit—or not fit—into one another’s lives, they could simply spend night after scorching night in one another’s arms and not worry about the future.

He hadn’t realized how fully he’d lost the thread of the meeting conversation until Desmond said his name.

“Gage? You still with us?”

Damn it.

“Sorry.” He wasn’t used to being distracted. Especially not by a woman. In his work, he normally juggled ten different tasks at a time. But the lack of trust and honesty between him and Elena burned raw. “Just thinking about how quickly I can tie up loose ends here and be back at Mesa Falls.”

Jonah gave him a sympathetic glance as he leaned deeper into the sofa. “We’re on to party planning. Miles suggested we host another celebrity shindig on-site and release a statement offering our own narrative about Alonzo. Maybe if we share a story of our own for where the money went, the public interest will die down.”

“You mean we lie?” Gage couldn’t imagine his friends would sink so low.

“Of course not,” Miles was quick to clarify. “Alonzo funneled some of the profits from his book to building infrastructure in poor neighborhoods in cities around the world. We have photos and concrete evidence of those travels, right, Wes?”

“We do,” Weston confirmed, clicking more keys before a picture of an old-fashioned bulletin board covered with photographs held up with thumbtacks appeared on his screen. The shots showed Alonzo in foreign countries around the world, posed with volunteer groups in front of a variety of building projects.

“So we have a party,” Gage agreed, wondering if he had ever felt in less of a party mode in his life, “and reveal Alonzo’s secret life as a philanthropist.”

Desmond straightened from his spot near the fireplace. “Do you think Elena will take up the cause? Be the vehicle for the story we want to circulate about Alonzo?”

Gage’s gut knotted at the thought of asking her to use her newfound social media cache to share a story that he knew wasn’t the full truth. He refused to lie to her after the way he and his father had treated her six years ago.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, unwilling to promise anything.