I only have the truth, and it’s what she deserves. “I thought you would have grasped The Manor’s operations on our first meeting, Ava,” I say, my mind giving me a swift flashback of her face on our first encounter. The words she said to me that completely knocked me sideways, more than she already had with nothing but her beauty and clear inability to deal with my presence. You have a lovely hotel. “When it became obvious that you hadn’t, it just got harder and harder to tell you.” And now I’m here, standing before her wondering with increasing concern if this is fixable.

Her head drops, her eyes darting across the plush carpet. I’ve not known someone so deeply since Jake. But I have now. I know her, inside out, and I know she’s silently piecing the puzzle together. Piece by piece, she’s building the picture. Not the whole picture. Now, I wonder if she’ll ever get the whole picture. Just this part of the story is enough to end us. The rest?

“I’m going to leave now,” she says with an edge of resolve I don’t like, looking at me with equal grit. “And you’re going to let me go.”

She sidesteps me as I stand motionless, scrambling for some instruction, trying so hard to locate some sense in this madness. How do I handle this? What should I do? Beg. It’s all I have.

“Ava, wait.” I go after her. “Ava.” She doesn’t stop, doesn’t give me the time of day, as I follow on her heels. “Ava, baby, please.”

She pivots, and I stumble to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. Her face. I’ve never seen disappointment so deep. Hurt so rife. “Don’t even think about it,” she yells, and I back up, wary. “You’ll let me leave.”

“You’ve not even given me the chance to explain. Please, let me explain.”

“Explain what?” she asks. “I’ve seen everything I need to see. No explanation required.”

My hands come up of their own volition, reaching for her. She steps back. “You weren’t supposed to find out like this.” Fuck, this is a fucking mess. How did I let this happen? Why didn’t I deal with this sooner?

This.

This is why.

Her face. Her reaction. What she now thinks of me. I was delaying the inevitable. Delaying this pain, this hurt.

I watch as she casts her eyes around the entrance hall. I can feel the presence of some spectators, but there would be nothing that could make me tear my eyes away from Ava, as if I need to prolong this unbearable ache in my gut by seeing her desolation.

“What a fuck-up you really are.”

My shoulders tense as Mike’s snide words crawl across my back and settle under my skin.