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Back Love Fast
Chapters (85)
  1. BOOKS BY LOUISE BAY
  2. ONE
  3. Rosey
  4. TWO
  5. Byron
  6. THREE
  7. Rosey
  8. FOUR
  9. Byron
  10. FIVE
  11. Rosey
  12. SIX
  13. Byron
  14. SEVEN
  15. Rosey
  16. EIGHT
  17. Rosey
  18. NINE
  19. Byron
  20. TEN
  21. Rosey
  22. ELEVEN
  23. Byron
  24. TWELVE
  25. Rosey
  26. THIRTEEN
  27. Byron
  28. FOURTEEN
  29. Rosey
  30. FIFTEEN
  31. Rosey
  32. SIXTEEN
  33. Byron
  34. SEVENTEEN
  35. Rosey
  36. EIGHTEEN
  37. Byron
  38. NINETEEN
  39. Rosey
  40. TWENTY
  41. Rosey
  42. TWENTY-ONE
  43. Byron
  44. TWENTY-TWO
  45. Byron
  46. TWENTY-THREE
  47. Rosey
  48. TWENTY-FOUR
  49. Rosey
  50. TWENTY-FIVE
  51. Byron
  52. TWENTY-SIX
  53. Rosey
  54. TWENTY-SEVEN
  55. Byron
  56. TWENTY-EIGHT
  57. Rosey
  58. TWENTY-NINE
  59. Byron
  60. THIRTY
  61. Rosey
  62. THIRTY-ONE
  63. Rosey
  64. THIRTY-TWO
  65. Byron
  66. THIRTY-THREE
  67. Rosey
  68. THIRTY-FOUR
  69. Rosey
  70. THIRTY-FIVE
  71. Byron
  72. THIRTY-SIX
  73. Rosey
  74. THIRTY-SEVEN
  75. Byron
  76. THIRTY-EIGHT
  77. Byron
  78. EPILOGUE
  79. A month later – New York City
  80. 14 months later - Star Falls
  81. MR. MAYFAIR
  82. Beck
  83. Beck
  84. Stella
  85. BOOKS BY LOUISE BAY

Polly must see me coming, because she opens the passenger door. I’m just a couple of yards from the exit when I feel a hand on my arm and my heart sinks.

I stop and turn, accepting defeat.

I’ve been caught.

When I look up, I expect to see Frank staring back at me—but it’s a small man with jet-black hair who I don’t recognize. “You dropped this,” he says, handing me Lydia’s hoodie.

I laugh. I’m still free. “Thank you!” I say, beaming at him.

I forget any pretense of making a graceful exit. I run to the cab, to Polly, to freedom.

Nothing, not even God, is going to stop me.

TWO

Byron

When I left my hometown of Star Falls, Colorado, nearly fifteen years ago, I never thought I’d be back. Not even for the holidays. I knew I didn’t belong here. Which is why it’s so surprising that being back feels… not as strange as I expected it to. And the plaid shirt I’m wearing feels oddly comfortable. I don’t know why I kept it all these years. I found it at the back of my closet in New York and stuffed it in my luggage, reasoning that I’d seen eighteen Januarys in Star Falls and none of them were warm.

I upend my suitcase on the floor and start to unpack. Every time I’ve been back here over the last two years, I’ve always lived out of my luggage. But this trip feels more permanent. Not that I’m back for good—hell no—but I’ll be staying longer than I have on any of my previous trips. Eventually, I’ll move from the cabin I’ve rented into one of the lodges at the Colorado Club—the billionaires’ playground I’m constructing on the edge of town, a little way up the mountain. I want the construction workers to focus on the lodges that will be bought or rented by the centimillionaires and billionaires who will attend the Club’s grand opening at the end of next month.

My personal accommodations can wait.

I can’t bring myself to put on the cowboy hat and boots that are almost mandatory in Star Falls, but I put on the steel-toe boots I had couriered from Safety With Us in Brooklyn to my apartment in Tribeca, and my Colorado Rockies baseball hat I’ve had since I was a kid. I make a mental note to scuff my shoes up a little before I go into Grizzly’s tonight. The leather practically gleams, they’re so new.