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"Give your family my regrets that I’m going to miss that bonfire," I added, letting the bitterness bleed through the cracks in my armor. "I was looking forward to being on the beach and meeting your siblings. I thought we were building something real. I was wrong."

His jaw flexed, but his silence remained absolute.

"I hope the quiet is worth it. Goodbye, Ben."

I walked past him. The heat radiated off his body as I brushed by, a magnetic pull that tried to drag me back, but I tore myself out of his orbit. I stomped down the wooden steps, my sneakers crunching on the gravel. The driver’s side door of the SUV opened, and a large man in a black suit stepped out. Not Hunter. This man was private security hired by Mindy, a professional shadow I didn’t know.

"Ms. Vale?" he asked, scanning the perimeter.

I almost snorted at the ridiculousness of his question, but it took too much effort. I only had energy for one word. "Yes."

He took my bag from my shoulder and placed it into the trunk with efficient ease. He opened the back door for me, the interior revealing plush leather seats and the sterile, recycled air of climate control. It smelled like my old life. I climbed inside. The seat was cool and comfortable, molding to my body as I buckled the seatbelt.

The driver climbed behind the wheel and pulled his door shut. Heavy mechanical locks engaged with a decisive thunk. Adjusting the rearview mirror, he met my eyes. "Ms. Crane arranged for a private jet at the Key West airport. A cancellation popped up, which is how I made it down so fast."

Total numbness wrapped around my brain. Mustering the energy to thank him for the speed was impossible. I simply nodded, turning my attention to the window. The car moved as he maneuvered a quick reverse turn, and the gravel crunched under the heavy tires as we rolled toward the bumpy road.

I shouldn’t have done it. I should have stared straight ahead. I should have focused on the road, on the future, on the war plan I needed to draft for Nash. But I couldn’t help it.

I turned to stare out the tinted back window.

Ben hadn’t moved. He still leaned against the post, a dark figure dwindling in the distance. But as the car turned the corner, just before the mangroves swallowed the view of the cottage, he pushed himself off the post. He turned toward the car. His arms dropped to his sides, and even from this distance, even through the glass, I could see the collapse. His shoulders slumped. His head bowed. He stared at the retreating taillights with an expression of such utter, shattering devastation that he could have been screaming my name.

He didn’t want me to go. Ben was breaking his own heart to do this, but the realization didn’t make it better. It made it worse. It meant the emotion was real. Love. There was no point in denying it on either of our sides. But the fear was stronger.

So I turned back around to the front. The image of him standing there, alone on the porch of the house, burned into my mind. I raised the partition between me and the driver.

The tears finally came as we bumped down the hidden dirt road.

They weren’t the soft, silent tears of a victim. They were hot, angry, scalding tears that blurred my vision and made my throat ache. As we turned onto Main Street from a side road I didn’t even know was there, I let them fall for exactly one minute. I cried for the cottage. I cried for the garlic pasta. I cried for the man who thought he was a monster but was actually the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Then I stopped. I reached into the console to pull out a tissue and wiped my face with aggressive swipes. I smoothed my hair and sat up straighter, engaging my core, putting the Sutton Vale armor back on piece by piece as we traveled down Highway One toward Key West.

Ben had sent me away to fight. Fine. I would fight. I would go back to Los Angeles and hire the best lawyers money could buy. I would destroy Nash’s narrative, burn his conservatorship petition to ashes, and reclaim my life.

Chapter Twenty-Six

BEN

I stumbled more than walked back to the cottage, my bones almost liquid. Standing on the porch, the tropical heat baked the damp wood under my boots, but a freezing, arctic chill settled deep in my marrow. The mission was a success, and the extraction went perfectly. Sutton was in a secure vehicle and headed toward an airport, completely detached from the radioactive fallout of my past.

The interior of the house yawned like a cavern, and crossing the threshold required immense physical effort. Every corner of the small space held a landmine. The couch where she had tucked her knees under the afghan. The kitchen island where her hands had fumbled with a garlic clove.

Retreating to her bedroom was the only logical step. Stripping the bed, washing the sheets, and erasing the evidence of the last week would restore order. Action always cured panic. My boots crossed the floor with clear thumps. When I stopped in the doorway of the bedroom, the made bed dominated the space. A faint, lingering trace of shampoo hung in the stagnant air.

As I stepped toward the mattress, a glint of gold caught the sunlight.

The antique locket pooled on the wood of the nightstand. The delicate chain lay tangled in a heap, abandoned right next to the lamp base. A small, square sheet of torn paper rested beside the heirloom.

My lungs seized. A jagged piece of shrapnel wedged itself squarely in my throat.

Reaching out, my fingers brushed the cold metal. The piece of jewelry had been a treasured heirloom. Sutton gripped it like a talisman when the world tilted off its axis. Leaving it behind was not an accident or a frantic oversight. I picked up the note. The jagged, aggressive handwriting slashed across the paper in blue ink.

I won’t need you to return it this time.

Numb, I dropped the paper back on the nightstand. Her words gutted me with the efficiency of a serrated blade. I had driven Sutton away by pushing her so hard she left in a blaze of furious independence. Making her hate me was the only way to sever the emotional tether and protect her from the taint of my past. As I stared at the paper, a violent tremor shook my hand. Succeeding in this tactical retreat felt like amputating my own heart.

I dropped onto the edge of the mattress, and the springs groaned in protest. I stared blindly at the wall as the rationalizations lined up in my head, a desperate attempt to fortify the decision.