Ash laughs, but not like he thinks it’s funny, like he thinks it’s sad. “I don’t want you to ask my permission. We’re partners. We need to consult each other about decisions that affect the course we’re on. We’re attempting not only to find your father, but to subvert and potentially attack the most powerful Strategia Family in the world. If we aren’t on the exact same page, the Lions will crush us. They might crush us anyway. But if we have a slipup here in the UK like the one we had in Pembrook, we’ll end up dead.”

I exhale. “You’re right. One hundred percent. I didn’t tell you because I thought you would convince me not to go. And maybe I shouldn’t have gone. It was a selfish decision. I just couldn’t stand the thought that I might never see her again. In that moment it felt like I couldn’t go on if I didn’t at least let her know I was alive. But I didn’t think it through. And my carelessness put us both at risk. Again, I’m sorry. I really truly am.” I touch the tin with my dad’s note in it.

“All is forgiven,” he says, and pulls off the highway and onto a dirt road lined with trees.

I stare at my hands for a long moment. He’s done nothing but give me the benefit of the doubt since this whole thing began and I’ve returned the favor with bad decisions and an inability to tell him how I feel.

Ash said he’s falling for me. No one I’ve dated has ever said that to me before. And the truth is, there’s no one I would want to hear it from more than him. And I just blew past it with a stutter. I look at Ash. He’s just as beautiful in profile as he is straight-on. And as outrageous and daring as he is, he’s also got such a good heart. If I could push a rewind button on this whole conversation and approach it differently, I would.

He glances at me, his lips turned up in a small smile. My cheeks deepen their flush and I turn away, staring out the window, searching for the right words. Get yourself together, November! The last of the sunlight flickers through the trees, whimsically speckling our path. The sun moves lower in the sky and hugs the horizon, spilling red and orange through the bare winter branches.

Suddenly the trees clear and the dirt road becomes an enormous circle with a well-manicured lawn at its center. On the other side of the green is a giant stone mansion with spires that reach into the darkening sky.