Page 3 of The Biker and the Curvy Widow

The words land like blows, each one deserved. "I heard the place was struggling."

"So?"

"So I wanted to see for myself."

She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You couldn't pick up a phone? Couldn't walk in here any of the thousand days before tonight?" She shakes her head, something cracking behind her eyes. "I needed you, Pope. After Marco—I needed someone. And you disappeared."

"I know."

"That's it? You know?"

"What do you want me to say?" My voice comes out harsher than I intend. "That I couldn't stand to be near you? That every time I looked at you, all I saw was him dying? That I⁠—"

I stop myself. Can't finish that sentence. Not here. Not ever.

Mara stares at me, something shifting in her expression. The anger's still there, but underneath it, I see the same exhaustion that's been grinding her down. The same loneliness.

"Marco made me promise," I say quietly. "To take care of you."

"You've done a fantastic job of that."

"I've had brothers checking in. Making sure you're safe⁠—"

"Safe isn't the same as there, Pope. Safe is bare minimum. Safe is—" She breaks off, pressing her fingers to her temples. "Forget it. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Why not?"

The words come out before I can stop them, and something flickers across her face. Something resigned.

"Because I'm selling the restaurant." She meets my eyes finally, and the hollow acceptance in them guts me. "I'm leaving Saint's Hollow. Next week, maybe sooner. I just... I can't do this anymore."

The world tilts.

"What?"

"There's nothing keeping me here." She says it simply, like it's not tearing me apart. "Marco's gone. This place is drowning me. I need to start over somewhere that doesn't remind me of everything I lost."

I can't breathe. Can't think. She's leaving. After everything—after two years of protecting her from the shadows, of lying awake thinking about her, of carrying the guilt of loving her like a knife in my chest—she's walking away.

And I never even let myself be there for her.

"The memorial dinner," I manage. "Marco's two-year⁠—"

"Is in two days. I know." Her chin lifts, something fierce pushing through the exhaustion. "That's actually why I was going to call you. Before I go... I need someone to give the eulogy. Someone who knew him."

"Get one of the other brothers. Diesel, or⁠—"

"He would have wanted you." Her voice softens, and for a second, she's not the angry, exhausted woman in front of me. She's just Mara. The one Marco loved. The one I loved first. "You were his best friend. His president. His brother. It should be you."

The guilt twists deeper. She doesn't know the half of it. Doesn't know about the words Marco said with his dying breath—words that haunt me every time I close my eyes.

Let yourself have something good for once. You deserve it.

I don't deserve shit. And I definitely don't deserve her.

But I can't say no. Can't refuse her this one thing after everything I've failed to give her.

"Okay," I say. "I'll do it."