“Yes, we can.” Muffins and blue skies forever. I take her hand in mine and she lets go of the zip line. I hope she doesn’t see the tiny earthquakes of fear moving down my spine. I hope they never enter into her memory. I hope this day remains perfect in her thoughts. “Do you want to see how fast we can run?”

I hate having to turn this into a game, but there’s no better alternative. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to get us inside the house. To lock the doors and stay away from the windows until I can make a plan. Stay inside, stay quiet. There has to be a place on earth where I won’t have to do this. I have to find it. I will find it. But the first step is getting back to the house.

Paige’s eyes go wide, the blue there sparkling with excitement. “Where are we running?”

“Home,” I tell her. “Our house. Kitchen door. Ready?”

“I’m ready,” Paige shouts. “One, two, three. Go!”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Mateo Garza

I don’t want to answer Catrina’s calls. It’s the last thing I want to do. But when she calls a third time, I can’t put it off any longer. I pace to the other side of the beach house’s porch and answer.

“Hi, Catrina.”

“Mateo.” It’s quiet in the background. She’s in her office, then, or holed up at her house. I don’t care. I’m at the beach house I rented. I’m not with Emily. This seems like the most fundamental problem in my life. I’m not where Emily is, and I hate it. I’d rather not be in this situation at all. “I know you don’t want to have this discussion, but we have to have it.”

“The same discussion we’ve been having for weeks.”

“Yes.” Catrina’s exasperated. As if I haven’t told her every goddamn time we talked that I wasn’t going to do this. “The deal is now or never. I just need you to understand that word has gotten out. These things are never a secret for very long, and everybody in town is watching to see what you’ll do.”

By everybody in town, she means everybody in LA. I don’t know how to explain it any more clearly. Everybody in LA doesn’t matter at all to me. If they don’t like my business decisions, they can find another up-and-coming actor to take my place. That’s the way of things. There are always new people striving to make a life.