For the first time during this conversation, John looked anxious.

“Are you working for them?” She shoved the box back at him. “Please don’t tell me you’re working with them. It’s not worth it.”

“It’s not that,” John said. “You remember how I had a cabin in Oregon.”

“Had?” Anna stared at him. “John, what did you do?”

“My uncle wouldn’t want me to keep the place if I could make things right.” John shrugged. “He would have haunted me from his grave if I lived there after I messed up so terribly. Dan was happy to sell your movie for cash rather than enter into a complicated arrangement with Tom Melton. He has a lot of alimony to pay.”

“You sold your future? Your home?” Anna couldn’t believe it. She’d pictured him there so many times in the past week, grateful he had a place that belonged to him, that made him happy.

“It’s a house. It’s not my future.”

Anna wanted to look away, but she couldn’t, because he was so earnest and so kind—and never in a million years would she deserve him.

“Besides,” he said. “Now I have enough left over to fund my new project.”

“Left over? Isn’t it a hunting cabin?”

“It’s a six-bedroom estate with a view of Mount Bachelor, and it includes one hundred and fifty acres in a conservation easement, so no one can build around it.”

“That’s your uncle’s cabin?”

“Well, I didn’t want to call it an estate, ‘cause then you just sound like an asshole.”

Anna laughed, and she couldn’t believe he’d given this up to correct the mess they’d both gotten into. Her heart leaped at the thought of being with him, and she couldn’t handle it. She retreated to the one thing she knew how to talk about—work. “What’s the project?”

“Frank and I are starting a production company.”

“They must make really good trees in Oregon.” Anna wiped her eyes, and she wanted to be serious, but her heart was overwhelmed. “Everyone in town is going to expect you to fall on your face. It’s going to be amazing when you prove them all wrong.”

John had a big smile on his face. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“I don’t have any money,” Anna said. “Do you need investors? I mean, I could sell my car, but that wouldn’t even cover a day of shooting. You should talk to Reed. Jenny says his house has a veranda. He’s apparently loaded.”

Anna was rambling, but she was so excited for him, and she wished there was a way—any way—she could help. She knew he was going to do amazing things.

“Thanks for the offer, but that’s not what I wanted to ask.”