With that one word, I knew that trust wasn’t returned. It burned. That angry fire. Not at Bell but at myself, for destroying one of the most precious gifts I’d ever been given. But that was the thing about life. So often, we didn’t realize that the rarest and most beautiful gifts were already in our possession. Sometimes, we didn’t discover that truth before it was too late. I refused to let that be the case. I would do whatever it took to mend what I’d broken.

“Tell me about your bars.” Bell tucked her legs up under her.

“What do you want to know?”

She smiled. “Everything. Why you started them. Which one’s your favorite. What you’re doing next.”

I chuckled. Bell always did have a million and one questions. I’d always said that she could make conversation with a tree stump. “It just made sense. I’d grown up with Dad and Mom showing me the ropes at The Catch, so I knew the basics. I majored in business at UCLA, but I just couldn’t get excited about working in some stuffy office. I wanted something different.”

“I get that. Did you always want to start in LA?”

“It was another thing that was just logical. I had a few connections, people who were willing to invest. The first bar is still my favorite. It’s the one that I spend the most time at, the one that was the hardest to hand over the reins to.”

Bell’s expression softened. “Who’s looking after it while you’re here?”

“The manager who’s been with me the longest. I trust him, and he’s doing a great job. I guess I’m still just a bit of a control freak with my babies.” Though it had gotten easier over the past couple of weeks. When I’d first arrived, I’d called Luke every day, sometimes twice a day, to check on things. But now, I found myself waiting for his weekly reports instead.

“It must be hard.”

I looked back to Bell. The sun had caught in her hair, blond streaks of her ponytail catching the light. Her cheeks were pink from the hike, and her green eyes seemed to dance and sparkle. She’d never looked more beautiful. “What must be hard?” There was a rawness in my voice that I couldn’t disguise, a mix of emotions.

A flicker of sadness flitted across her features. “Being away from what you love. I bet you can’t wait to get back.”