“It’s Dad. I’ll take it outside.” My gaze remains fixed on her retreating form as she leaves the room.

Connor clears his throat. “You still haven’t answered my question, Spencer. Why does no one know about her? Why did you hide such a big part of your life from all of us?”

I clench my jaw as he forces me to say what he’s probably already deduced by now. “Because this isn’t real. This…relationship wasn’t supposed to happen. We were forced into it. You saw the marriage certificate, didn’t you?” I raise an eyebrow. I know Connor well. He wouldn’t have allowed Autumn near me until he was certain she was speaking the truth.

He nods, confirming my suspicion.

“You saw her age. She’s twelve years younger than me. She was…sixteen when they told her she was tied to me because of some promise.”

Shame and embarrassment crawl up my spine. “I was thirty the night we said our ‘I do’s,’ and she was eighteen. She had freckles on her face, for fuck’s sake.” I press the heels of my palm against my eyes, remembering that night. “She was wearing a goddamn white crop top and an expected scowl. It felt like I was robbing the cradle as she wrote to me in the first email. It was humiliating.”

Connor places his hand over my arm, still hiding my face. “Don’t be guilty for something that isn’t your fault.”

“I’m at fault, Connor. She’s been tied to me for four years, and I’ve done nothing to change that. On the day of our wedding, I promised her she could think of me as a friend, as someone who would always protect her, but we can’t go on like this anymore. She has to live her life.”

“She’s no longer eighteen, Lukas.”

My heart stops at his words.

As if I haven’t noticed.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s still extremely unjust to her.”

My boss, my friend, looks at me for a second too long before he nods. “But now she knows—and I guess her family, too—that you’re here. What’s next?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

The words have just left my mouth when Autumn walks inside. “My family is on their way to St. Peppers.”

“Fuck.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you were here all this time,” Autumn’s grandma finally says after they have made sure I’m out of danger. They even had a lengthy conversation with the doctor. This much attention feels weird and strange, especially for someone like me who’s been a loner most of his life.

“Mom, I think we can talk about all this once Lukas is fully recovered.” Autumn’s dad, Jasper, places a hand over his mother-in-law’s shoulder.