Page 145 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

“I strayed,” he continues, like he’s confessing to eating dessert before dinner. “I apologized. Now you need to come home.”

“What?” I stare at him. “Are you delusional?”

“Clara, be reasonable,” he says, lowering his voice like I’m the unstable one. “Who else is going to marry you and overlook all your… you-ness?”

My stomach drops.

“My what?”

“You refuse to diet. You’re incorrigible. You flit from project to project.” He smiles like he’s being generous. “I’m willing to overlook that, sweetheart. Just come home.”

Something cold and steady replaces the hurt.

“Geoffrey,” I say evenly, “you are out of your mind.”

He grabs my arm.

Hard.

“Get your hands off me.”

“Just let me kiss you,” he insists. “Let me make it up to you. Mr. Downey is asking about the wedding. I need to tell him something.”

“Tell him,” I snap, yanking my arm free, “that you fucked your secretary on my goddamn kitchen island and that wedding is off.”

His face darkens.

“You’re being hysterical.”

I laugh.

Hysterical.

Classic.

“Leave,” I say. “Now.”

He steps closer again, and I shove him back with both hands. “Get off me!”

And that’s when I see it.

Headlights.

A truck.

Parked down the road.

My heart drops straight into my stomach.

My pulse spikes so hard I feel it in my ears.

I know that truck.

Greyson.

He’s sitting behind the wheel.

Watching.