“I don’t like that he’s made you sad.” Dad tapped his finger to my chin. “I don’t like the look in your eyes today. He took your fire, Ella.”

I tipped my chin down. “I didn’t ever love Philip like I love Simon.”

Dad sighed and a white puff of air swirled around our heads.

“You have a great big heart and a lovely, independent spirit. Just the type of daughter I’d always wished for.” He tipped my chin up, pinching it. “Now, though, you’re hurt and scared, and it makes this father worry. You deserve every happiness, love. Every single one.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead and then ushered me toward Jeremiah. I walked back toward my folks’ cottage, lost in thought.

4

Simon

I scrubbed my hands over my face, but staring at the picture of Ella snuggled in the arms of her ex-boyfriend didn’t make the image—nor my scowl—disappear. If she didn’t look so shocked in the first and despondent in the second, I’d . . . what?

I’d sent her divorce papers. Well . . . the email came from my account. I’d ferreted that bit out when I called my lawyer earlier, not long after my call to Asher. His secretary forwarded me the original email dated two weeks prior.

I dropped my head into my hands with a groan. What a cluster.

If Ella was tearing up the sheets with Philip right now, it wasn’t like I could be angry at her.

Except I was. And jealous. Soul-eating, trailer-wrecking jealous. And I sat on the wrong continent, another show tonight with four more planned over the next seven days.

Asher had warned me not to get caught up in the churn, to manage my schedule and my time so that I didn’t end up right here, in this predicament. Alone the week before Christmas, and so goddamn lonely I couldn’t draw a full breath.

“You need to put out a statement.” Gerard’s blunt finger tapped my laptop’s screen. Didn’t matter how many times I asked him not to touch the screen, he grimed the glass with whatever nasty lived on his fingertip. I’d wipe it again later.

“I fired Monique, remember? You’ll have to put out a statement.”

“I don’t understand why you did that. She’s great at this stuff.”

I turned in my chair, forcing Gerard back two full paces, enough to give me some space. The whole breathing-down-the-back-of-my-neck thing didn’t work for me. “She called me baby.”

“She calls all her clients baby.”

“She kissed me in front of Ella.”

Gerard’s eyes widened as his lips formed an O.