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Until then, I was just enjoying spending time with her.

“You should call your mom so she knows that someone will be knocking soon. Then you’re going to need to adopt a very shocked face and tell Janet and Jill what you ‘just’ found out about your ex.”

“Like this?” she asked, making her eyes go round, her jaw slack. I swear she even looked paler.

“Damn. Quin and his team are worth every penny,” I said, getting a little laugh out of her. “Then after all that, we need to head to the studio. I just got a call that the next round of mugs has been fired.”

We’d been there twice already.

It was obvious to me when I saw Georgie sit down at the wheel and get to work that she would happily go every single day if work and life didn’t have to get in the way.

The part of me that always wanted to fix things had been trying to figure out how to give her her own access to a studio with a wheel and a kiln. But while she was at the motel and I was at the clubhouse, my hands were pretty tied.

“Okay,” Georgie said a moment later. “She’s been warned. We need to contact Hope tomorrow,” she said as she took one of the bagels. “Get a private investigator involved in finding my husband.”

“Yeah, I’ll make a call. But first, the sisters. They look like they’re about to storm up here.”

“I’m ready,” she said, rolling her shoulders as she took a bite of her bagel and chewed before we both went toward the door.

By the time we reached the bottom of the steps, she had her shocked and confused look on. Convincing enough that the only people who knew her about as well as I did immediately went to her.

“Is everything okay?”

“Perry is missing.”

“Missing?” Jill asked.

“That asshole?” Janet said at the same time.

Jill shot her sister a look. “Did they have any details?”

“No. None. I think they were just starting to look.”

“And the spouse is always the first one to ask. Well, they have nothing to go on there. You were well on your way to being free of him.”

“Yeah, it’s just so crazy,” Georgie said, lowering herself into one of the lawn chairs. “I mean… who goes missing?”

“A lot more people than you’d think,” Janet said, sitting down across from her.

Then the two sisters launched into missing persons statistics and local open cases.

It wasn’t until they were arguing over what seemed to be an inconsequential detail of a case from years ago that Georgie glanced up at me, the smallest of smirks on her lips, that I understood that she’d tossed out that question on purpose. That she did it to make the sisters go off on one of their crime tangents. While forgetting to ask her about her situation.

Either way, I found it almost impossibly hot that someone who was so soft, so sweet, so innocent in many ways, was able to turn the situation exactly in the direction she wanted.

I knew right that moment that we had nothing to worry about, that the cops would never be able to pin anything on her.

There was nothing standing in the way of us and the future we wanted.

Georgie - 14 months

I walked up to the clubhouse in my stiff slacks and pink silk blouse with my hair pulled back in a low pony—all details Ethan made it clear I had to wear to court.

I was officially divorced.

Because not even disappearing could prevent someone from divorcing you. From the law to keep moving on without you.

I didn’t end up walking away with nothing, like I’d requested. The court had insisted that my property—including my car, clothes, jewelry, and other personal items—belonged to me, whether I wanted them or not.