“You are so sexy,” he whispers. “So f**king sexy you make me lose my mind.”
I lick my lips. “I like it when you lose your mind.”
He pulls out almost all the way, and I gasp with the loss. He grips my h*ps and rises onto his knees, lifting my h*ps up off the bed and keeping us connected. For a second, I think he’s going to stop, that he’s done with me, but then he’s filling me again, driving into me at this new, deeper angle. His eyes are hot and his gaze is locked on that spot where our bodies meet, and I suddenly understand the appeal of the position. They say that women aren’t visual, but seeing all of Nate, watching him lose his control as he thrusts his hips, is so hot it has me climbing again.
“That’s right, angel,” he growls, lifting his eyes to mine.
He strokes my clit, and his movements grow rougher. This time as I come, he slams into me, the muscles in his neck straining as his fingers curl deeper into my hips, and he comes.
After he cleans up in the bathroom, he slides back into bed next to me. He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles my neck. “I don’t want to let you go.”
My body is sore and sated, my heart full, my eyes closed as I’m curled against him. I breathe him in and remind myself to stay in this moment—here and now. No regrets or longing for a future that can’t be.
“If only you weren’t still in love with him,” Nate whispers.
I picture Max—the big grin, the intense eyes. No matter how much I want this moment to be about me and Nate and no one else, it can’t be that way when my heart is divided.
“I can’t help that.”
I can tell by the way his body stiffens that he thought I was sleeping and didn’t expect me to hear his words. “He’s waiting for you.” It isn’t a question, more like a reminder.
“Why are we talking about this?”
He finds my left hand and takes it in his, rubbing my bare ring finger. “Because I’m in love with you.”
My heart swells at his words, threatening to burst at the fractured seams. “I love you too.”
“What if I told you I needed you to choose?”
I turn in his arms so I can see his face. “I don’t understand.”
He slides a hand into my hair and brings my head to rest against his chest. “This is hard for me. I’ve never wanted…”
I want to look at his face, to try to understand what he’s saying, but he clutches me tighter against his chest, and all I can do is wrap my arms around him and hold on.
“My decision not to start another family wasn’t a difficult one for me,” he says softly. “Collin is my world, and I never thought anyone would matter as much as him. But then I met you.” He loosens his hold, and I draw back so I can see his face. There’s torment in his eyes.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying I’ve fallen in love with a girl who makes me want to figure it all out and find a way to make it work.”
My chest tightens with hope, confusion, terror. Because…me and Nate for real? How would that even work? “Nate, you don’t have to—”
“I want to. Fuck, angel, I need to.”
“Then why do you look so sad?”
“Because you’re still in love with him, and I’m not sure I’m the guy you’ll choose.” He brushes his knuckles across my cheek and lowers his voice so I can barely make out his words. “I’m not sure I’m the one you should choose.”
“I love you.” I feel the tears on my cheeks. The panic in my chest.
“You need to talk to Max. Before I come to New Hope to work with Asher next week. You need to put it out there. Tell him what you’re scared of. As much as I want to believe he’s just some as**ole after you for the wrong reasons, I don’t think that’s true. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Hanna. You have to hear him out because you deserve better than to let your insecurities keep you from the life you deserve.”
“And what if I choose him?”
He studies me in the silence, his eyes roaming over my features. Memorizing. “I’ll let you go. I know this is hard for you, and you have my word that I’ll respect your decision once you’ve made it. I’ll still feel like the luckiest bastard in the world because you trusted me with something precious.”
“My virginity?”
“Your heart, angel.” He swallows. “But here’s the deal. If you choose me, I want all of you. Mind, body, and soul. I won’t settle for less and I won’t share.”
40.
Max
Five Days Before Hanna’s Accident
THE NOTIFICATION light on my phone is flashing at me when I get back to my office. Shit. I missed a call from Hanna.
I dial the voicemail and listen.
“Hi, Max. Can you swing by my place tonight? I need to talk to you about some things. You’re right. I needed to make a decision, and I did.”
My stomach knots and I have to sink to my chair. She made a decision. I’ve wanted this, but I’ve dreaded it just as much.
I’m halfway through texting a reply when my phone rings and Lizzy’s number pops onto the screen.
“Hello?”
“Max? Hanna…” I can’t make out her words. All I know is that she’s crying, sobbing, and repeating Hanna’s name and hospital.
“I’ll be there in two minutes.” I don’t bother putting away my files, shutting down my computer, or even telling anyone where I’m going. My mind is in such a fog that the drive to the hospital is a blur. I’m in constant motion until I make it to the hospital and I find her in a temporary room beyond the ER.
For the first time since I got Lizzy’s call, I stop moving. Hanna’s in a hospital gown, unconscious, her lip bloody, her face battered. “Where am I?” she murmurs, turning her head toward Liz.
“You’re in the hospital,” Liz replies. “You’ve been in an accident.”
“My head hurts,” Hanna whispers. Then she closes her eyes again.
Finally my feet obey my brain and I step into the room. “Is she okay?”
“Does she look okay?” Liz sniffs and doesn’t bother looking at me.
Then I see it. Right there on Hanna’s left hand—my grandmother’s engagement ring. She made a decision.
Part Four: After
41.
Max
Present Day
THE AXE splits the wood again and again, the boom and crack comforting me, the burning in my arms and shoulders distracting me from the f**king aching in my chest.
How long can you fight for someone before it kills you inside? How long can you hold out before it isn’t devotion but pathetic desperation?
“I thought I’d find you here.”
I look up to see Will pushing through the gate to my mom’s backyard. He eyes my growing wood pile and raises a brow.
“Planning a fire?”
“No. Just…” My throat thickens, and I rest the axe on the trunk of a maple and grab my water bottle. I guzzle half of it before trying to talk again. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a wedding to prepare for?”
Will shrugs. “I’ll pick up my tux on Friday, but we have a wedding planner who’s pretty much taking care of the rest.”
I grunt and start stacking wood under the awning by Mom’s back porch.
Will doesn’t ask any questions, just starts grabbing wood with me and adding it to the pile. We work together seamlessly, the only sounds the chirping of the birds and the rumble of the occasional diesel truck passing on the street out front.
I only speak when the wood is all stacked and my hands burn from handling the rough logs. “She thinks I want her for her money.”
Will coughs on his water. “What?”
“Yeah. Apparently Meredith planted this idea in her head, and she can’t let it go.”
“Tell her everything. Make her understand.”
I let out a long breath. Leave it to Will to figure that the truth will set me free and all that shit. “It’s more complicated than that,” I mumble.
“If by complicated, you mean she bruised the shit out of your ego, I’d believe that.”
“By complicated, I mean she’s pregnant.”
Will’s brows shoot up, hiding under his messy blond mop. “Say what?”
I’ve had less than twenty-four hours to process the fact that my fiancée spent her summer with another guy, and the news of her pregnancy isn’t going down real smooth. “Nate Crane got her pregnant.”
“Are you serious? I thought she was waiting for marriage to have sex.”
I nod, swallowing around that lump in my throat. “Apparently that only applied for me. Fuck.” I punch the wood stack then regret it when my knuckles feel like they’re going to explode. “She says it’s over between them. Doesn’t she deserve better than that? I swear, if I get my hands on him—”
“Nate is dead,” Will says softly.
“What?”
“He was supposed to be performing in Afghanistan this week with a couple of other musicians. Their helicopter was taken down by a surface-to-air missile. No survivors.” He studies me closely as he shares this news, and I feel my heart slow down to a dangerous crawl.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Is Hanna okay?”
Will shakes his head. “She saw the news report at Brady’s. She’s in shock, but they got her home and into bed.”
“Shit.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Worse than my own pain is the knowledge that Hanna is hurting.
Will shoves his hands in his pockets. “She’s going to need you.”
42. Hanna
WHEN I wake, sunlight is slicing across my blankets and I can hear voices outside my bedroom. My sisters, Nix, Cally.
“The military has issued an official press release that there were no survivors.” Maggie’s voice, soft, full of grief. “They have to do…” A ragged intake of breath. “…to do DNA testing to confirm who was on the plane. Because—” She breaks off on a sob, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
I push out of the bed and pull on a robe before rushing into the bathroom and vomiting. My stomach heaves and cramps and shudders, and when there’s nothing else left inside, I wash my hands and face, brush my teeth, and study my reflection in the mirror. The perpetual flush has left my cheeks, and I’m pale and ghostly, my eyes vacant.
Yesterday, when the girls tucked me into bed, my heart hurt so much that I couldn’t feel anything else. That ache is gone now. I can’t feel anything this morning, not numb but empty.
In the living room, Lizzy, Maggie, Cally, and Nix greet me with worried eyes, and I hold up a finger. “Don’t,” I warn.
My twin rushes forward and folds me into a hug, but I keep my body stiff. If I bend to this, even a little, the darkness will come back. I have to keep moving forward. I have to erect my walls and fortify them with ambivalence.
“Max called,” Maggie says softly. “He’s worried about you.”
Max. Max, who knows my heart is breaking over another man. Who knows I’m pregnant with that man’s baby. And he’s still calling to check on me.
“I’m okay,” I manage. “I need to get showered. Who’s running the bakery?”
“Drew’s down there right now,” Liz says. “She said she couldn’t sleep anyway and offered to run the front this morning. I was just about to head down so she could get to school.”
“Thanks for taking care of that.”
“Of course,” she says helplessly. “Anything for you, Han.”
I walk to the kitchen and fill a glass of water to take my prenatal vitamin. When I close my eyes to swallow, I see Nate’s face. Tender and sweet as he enters me for the first time. This baby is never going to know his dad. Never going to hear him sing outside of recordings. Never going to know the feel of his hand ruffling his hair.
Having the choice ripped from my control made me realize just how terrible it would have been to keep this baby a secret from Nate. Maybe I would have come to that realization on my own, but it’s painfully clear now. Especially in light of my newest memory.
Nate lied to me. The reminder sparks something like anger inside me. It’s not enough to fill the emptiness, but it’s something, and I’d rather be angry than be nothing but a void. When I was in LA, he lied.
“I never offered you what he did. The life, the marriage, the commitment. The happily-ever-fucking-after. I can’t. I won’t. It wasn’t a choice between him and me because I wasn’t offering you those things.”
But that wasn’t true at all. He told me that I needed to make a choice just days before I lost my memory, but he knew I couldn’t remember. Why? I took off my ring when I was in LA. I told him that I realized I couldn’t be with Max anymore. Was he stepping back because he thought I’d change my mind and go back to Max? Or did he change his mind and decide he didn’t want me after all?
What did he say that night at Asher’s? “I promised that when you made your decision, I would respect it. That if you took his ring, I wouldn’t try to change your mind.”
Why couldn’t he just have been honest with me? Yes. Anger. Anger is good. Without it, I’m afraid I’ll just disappear.
“Will you still be coming into the office today?” Nix asks.
Closing my eyes and clinging to that sliver of anger toward Nate, I nod.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Liz asks.
I shake my head. “No. I think I need to do this by myself.”
I lick my lips. “I like it when you lose your mind.”
He pulls out almost all the way, and I gasp with the loss. He grips my h*ps and rises onto his knees, lifting my h*ps up off the bed and keeping us connected. For a second, I think he’s going to stop, that he’s done with me, but then he’s filling me again, driving into me at this new, deeper angle. His eyes are hot and his gaze is locked on that spot where our bodies meet, and I suddenly understand the appeal of the position. They say that women aren’t visual, but seeing all of Nate, watching him lose his control as he thrusts his hips, is so hot it has me climbing again.
“That’s right, angel,” he growls, lifting his eyes to mine.
He strokes my clit, and his movements grow rougher. This time as I come, he slams into me, the muscles in his neck straining as his fingers curl deeper into my hips, and he comes.
After he cleans up in the bathroom, he slides back into bed next to me. He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles my neck. “I don’t want to let you go.”
My body is sore and sated, my heart full, my eyes closed as I’m curled against him. I breathe him in and remind myself to stay in this moment—here and now. No regrets or longing for a future that can’t be.
“If only you weren’t still in love with him,” Nate whispers.
I picture Max—the big grin, the intense eyes. No matter how much I want this moment to be about me and Nate and no one else, it can’t be that way when my heart is divided.
“I can’t help that.”
I can tell by the way his body stiffens that he thought I was sleeping and didn’t expect me to hear his words. “He’s waiting for you.” It isn’t a question, more like a reminder.
“Why are we talking about this?”
He finds my left hand and takes it in his, rubbing my bare ring finger. “Because I’m in love with you.”
My heart swells at his words, threatening to burst at the fractured seams. “I love you too.”
“What if I told you I needed you to choose?”
I turn in his arms so I can see his face. “I don’t understand.”
He slides a hand into my hair and brings my head to rest against his chest. “This is hard for me. I’ve never wanted…”
I want to look at his face, to try to understand what he’s saying, but he clutches me tighter against his chest, and all I can do is wrap my arms around him and hold on.
“My decision not to start another family wasn’t a difficult one for me,” he says softly. “Collin is my world, and I never thought anyone would matter as much as him. But then I met you.” He loosens his hold, and I draw back so I can see his face. There’s torment in his eyes.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying I’ve fallen in love with a girl who makes me want to figure it all out and find a way to make it work.”
My chest tightens with hope, confusion, terror. Because…me and Nate for real? How would that even work? “Nate, you don’t have to—”
“I want to. Fuck, angel, I need to.”
“Then why do you look so sad?”
“Because you’re still in love with him, and I’m not sure I’m the guy you’ll choose.” He brushes his knuckles across my cheek and lowers his voice so I can barely make out his words. “I’m not sure I’m the one you should choose.”
“I love you.” I feel the tears on my cheeks. The panic in my chest.
“You need to talk to Max. Before I come to New Hope to work with Asher next week. You need to put it out there. Tell him what you’re scared of. As much as I want to believe he’s just some as**ole after you for the wrong reasons, I don’t think that’s true. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Hanna. You have to hear him out because you deserve better than to let your insecurities keep you from the life you deserve.”
“And what if I choose him?”
He studies me in the silence, his eyes roaming over my features. Memorizing. “I’ll let you go. I know this is hard for you, and you have my word that I’ll respect your decision once you’ve made it. I’ll still feel like the luckiest bastard in the world because you trusted me with something precious.”
“My virginity?”
“Your heart, angel.” He swallows. “But here’s the deal. If you choose me, I want all of you. Mind, body, and soul. I won’t settle for less and I won’t share.”
40.
Max
Five Days Before Hanna’s Accident
THE NOTIFICATION light on my phone is flashing at me when I get back to my office. Shit. I missed a call from Hanna.
I dial the voicemail and listen.
“Hi, Max. Can you swing by my place tonight? I need to talk to you about some things. You’re right. I needed to make a decision, and I did.”
My stomach knots and I have to sink to my chair. She made a decision. I’ve wanted this, but I’ve dreaded it just as much.
I’m halfway through texting a reply when my phone rings and Lizzy’s number pops onto the screen.
“Hello?”
“Max? Hanna…” I can’t make out her words. All I know is that she’s crying, sobbing, and repeating Hanna’s name and hospital.
“I’ll be there in two minutes.” I don’t bother putting away my files, shutting down my computer, or even telling anyone where I’m going. My mind is in such a fog that the drive to the hospital is a blur. I’m in constant motion until I make it to the hospital and I find her in a temporary room beyond the ER.
For the first time since I got Lizzy’s call, I stop moving. Hanna’s in a hospital gown, unconscious, her lip bloody, her face battered. “Where am I?” she murmurs, turning her head toward Liz.
“You’re in the hospital,” Liz replies. “You’ve been in an accident.”
“My head hurts,” Hanna whispers. Then she closes her eyes again.
Finally my feet obey my brain and I step into the room. “Is she okay?”
“Does she look okay?” Liz sniffs and doesn’t bother looking at me.
Then I see it. Right there on Hanna’s left hand—my grandmother’s engagement ring. She made a decision.
Part Four: After
41.
Max
Present Day
THE AXE splits the wood again and again, the boom and crack comforting me, the burning in my arms and shoulders distracting me from the f**king aching in my chest.
How long can you fight for someone before it kills you inside? How long can you hold out before it isn’t devotion but pathetic desperation?
“I thought I’d find you here.”
I look up to see Will pushing through the gate to my mom’s backyard. He eyes my growing wood pile and raises a brow.
“Planning a fire?”
“No. Just…” My throat thickens, and I rest the axe on the trunk of a maple and grab my water bottle. I guzzle half of it before trying to talk again. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a wedding to prepare for?”
Will shrugs. “I’ll pick up my tux on Friday, but we have a wedding planner who’s pretty much taking care of the rest.”
I grunt and start stacking wood under the awning by Mom’s back porch.
Will doesn’t ask any questions, just starts grabbing wood with me and adding it to the pile. We work together seamlessly, the only sounds the chirping of the birds and the rumble of the occasional diesel truck passing on the street out front.
I only speak when the wood is all stacked and my hands burn from handling the rough logs. “She thinks I want her for her money.”
Will coughs on his water. “What?”
“Yeah. Apparently Meredith planted this idea in her head, and she can’t let it go.”
“Tell her everything. Make her understand.”
I let out a long breath. Leave it to Will to figure that the truth will set me free and all that shit. “It’s more complicated than that,” I mumble.
“If by complicated, you mean she bruised the shit out of your ego, I’d believe that.”
“By complicated, I mean she’s pregnant.”
Will’s brows shoot up, hiding under his messy blond mop. “Say what?”
I’ve had less than twenty-four hours to process the fact that my fiancée spent her summer with another guy, and the news of her pregnancy isn’t going down real smooth. “Nate Crane got her pregnant.”
“Are you serious? I thought she was waiting for marriage to have sex.”
I nod, swallowing around that lump in my throat. “Apparently that only applied for me. Fuck.” I punch the wood stack then regret it when my knuckles feel like they’re going to explode. “She says it’s over between them. Doesn’t she deserve better than that? I swear, if I get my hands on him—”
“Nate is dead,” Will says softly.
“What?”
“He was supposed to be performing in Afghanistan this week with a couple of other musicians. Their helicopter was taken down by a surface-to-air missile. No survivors.” He studies me closely as he shares this news, and I feel my heart slow down to a dangerous crawl.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Is Hanna okay?”
Will shakes his head. “She saw the news report at Brady’s. She’s in shock, but they got her home and into bed.”
“Shit.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Worse than my own pain is the knowledge that Hanna is hurting.
Will shoves his hands in his pockets. “She’s going to need you.”
42. Hanna
WHEN I wake, sunlight is slicing across my blankets and I can hear voices outside my bedroom. My sisters, Nix, Cally.
“The military has issued an official press release that there were no survivors.” Maggie’s voice, soft, full of grief. “They have to do…” A ragged intake of breath. “…to do DNA testing to confirm who was on the plane. Because—” She breaks off on a sob, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
I push out of the bed and pull on a robe before rushing into the bathroom and vomiting. My stomach heaves and cramps and shudders, and when there’s nothing else left inside, I wash my hands and face, brush my teeth, and study my reflection in the mirror. The perpetual flush has left my cheeks, and I’m pale and ghostly, my eyes vacant.
Yesterday, when the girls tucked me into bed, my heart hurt so much that I couldn’t feel anything else. That ache is gone now. I can’t feel anything this morning, not numb but empty.
In the living room, Lizzy, Maggie, Cally, and Nix greet me with worried eyes, and I hold up a finger. “Don’t,” I warn.
My twin rushes forward and folds me into a hug, but I keep my body stiff. If I bend to this, even a little, the darkness will come back. I have to keep moving forward. I have to erect my walls and fortify them with ambivalence.
“Max called,” Maggie says softly. “He’s worried about you.”
Max. Max, who knows my heart is breaking over another man. Who knows I’m pregnant with that man’s baby. And he’s still calling to check on me.
“I’m okay,” I manage. “I need to get showered. Who’s running the bakery?”
“Drew’s down there right now,” Liz says. “She said she couldn’t sleep anyway and offered to run the front this morning. I was just about to head down so she could get to school.”
“Thanks for taking care of that.”
“Of course,” she says helplessly. “Anything for you, Han.”
I walk to the kitchen and fill a glass of water to take my prenatal vitamin. When I close my eyes to swallow, I see Nate’s face. Tender and sweet as he enters me for the first time. This baby is never going to know his dad. Never going to hear him sing outside of recordings. Never going to know the feel of his hand ruffling his hair.
Having the choice ripped from my control made me realize just how terrible it would have been to keep this baby a secret from Nate. Maybe I would have come to that realization on my own, but it’s painfully clear now. Especially in light of my newest memory.
Nate lied to me. The reminder sparks something like anger inside me. It’s not enough to fill the emptiness, but it’s something, and I’d rather be angry than be nothing but a void. When I was in LA, he lied.
“I never offered you what he did. The life, the marriage, the commitment. The happily-ever-fucking-after. I can’t. I won’t. It wasn’t a choice between him and me because I wasn’t offering you those things.”
But that wasn’t true at all. He told me that I needed to make a choice just days before I lost my memory, but he knew I couldn’t remember. Why? I took off my ring when I was in LA. I told him that I realized I couldn’t be with Max anymore. Was he stepping back because he thought I’d change my mind and go back to Max? Or did he change his mind and decide he didn’t want me after all?
What did he say that night at Asher’s? “I promised that when you made your decision, I would respect it. That if you took his ring, I wouldn’t try to change your mind.”
Why couldn’t he just have been honest with me? Yes. Anger. Anger is good. Without it, I’m afraid I’ll just disappear.
“Will you still be coming into the office today?” Nix asks.
Closing my eyes and clinging to that sliver of anger toward Nate, I nod.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Liz asks.
I shake my head. “No. I think I need to do this by myself.”
