I remained silent, fuming inwardly.

Derek sighed deeply, all the anger flooding out, leaving him a slumped-over mess. “I meant what I said before. If the merger doesn’t go through, Thornton Products will survive, but Hastings International would be circling the drain. If you tell my father, if you tell anyone, and the merger falls through, your family is the one that will get hurt. What will it do to your father to see your family’s legacy destroyed? What will it do to you, and all those employees?”

I didn’t have an answer for him because there was no good answer.

He was right.

Interpreting my silence correctly, Derek shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I think I could be a good husband to you. Now that you know the truth about me, we might even be able to become friends.” Turning on his heel, he left.

I watched him go, still holding on to the doorknob.

As his Ferrari disappeared down the road, I covered my mouth. Tears were streaking down my cheeks, leaving hot paths behind, as I struggled with my grief. A part of me had hoped Derek might be an ally in escaping the circumstances we faced. That he might help me come up with an out. Then I could be with Jackson, and he could be free to find someone, too, and no one would get hurt. But I’d underestimated his fear.

There was no escape.

I always knew there was a possibility that I might have to actually marry Derek if I wanted to save all those people’s jobs, but losing that slim possibility of freedom I’d clung to for so long was devastating. Fumbling with my keys, I finally opened the door to the townhome and closed it behind me, bracing myself against it. The second I shut that world behind me, the real world, it was as if a huge weight was lifted off my chest, and I could finally breathe. When I was here with Jackson, I could ignore everything trying to keep us apart. Everything felt right.

The second I walked into brunch this morning, I knew I’d made a mistake in leaving Jackson. And after the newest debacle on the doorstep, I was even more certain.

Sitting at that table for brunch, and making polite conversation while smiling as if I were happy, pretending to be one hundred percent okay with marrying a man I barely liked, felt wrong. I had to marry a man that I basically tolerated.

And I was expected to be okay with that?

I wasn’t. I wasn’t okay. But I was going to do it, anyway.

What I really needed was to exist in denial for a little while. I needed Jackson, and his touch. His laugh. His words. I needed…him.

“Hello?” I called out, setting my purse down on the table. His truck was here, so I figured he had to be here, but the house was dark and silent. “Are you home?”

No answer.

“Jackson?” I called out louder.

Still nothing.

I climbed the stairs, passed my bedroom door, and stopped in front of his room. Reaching for the knob, I tried to turn it. It didn’t budge. He’d locked me out. “Jackson?”

Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. “Yeah?”

“Uh…can I come in?”

Silence, then: “No.”

My heart twisted. “Why not?”

“I don’t want to see you right now.”

Jackson didn’t want to see me. Didn’t want to talk to me, and that hurt more than any of his other rejections had ever hurt me before. I swallowed hard and rested a hand on the barrier keeping me from the one thing I wanted. “Is this because I went to brunch?”

“No. Well, yes, in part.” The light at the bottom of the door dimmed, and I knew he was standing just on the other side. For some reason that made his refusal to open it even harder to swallow. “It’s not that, specifically, but it made me realize something. It’s time to rip the Band-Aid off.”

“When did I become a Band-Aid?”

Silence, and then, “When you promised to marry Derek.”

Resting on the doorjamb, I scrambled for the right words to express how I felt, which was hard because I didn’t even really know what I was primarily feeling right now. Coming so soon after Derek’s refusal to help, it was a blow, and all my feelings were scrambled together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t—I don’t know what to do anymore. What to say.”

“Just go to bed, don’t say anything at all. I don’t need or want an explanation. You’re marrying Derek,” he said, his tone short. “There’s nothing more to say.”

I pressed my lips together. “I feel like there is.”

“Lilly…” He made a small sound. “It was fun, what we had.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his laugh. It was a mockery of it. “It felt good. We can both agree to that. But now it’s over. Now we move on, and go back to the original plan of pretending this never happened. I’ll just be your stepbrother, and you’ll just be my stepsister.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for this.” I gripped the knob and twisted it again, rattling it. “Can you please just open the door?”

“No.” His voice brooked no argument. “It’s time to start over again. What we had, what we could have been, is gone. Now it’s something we might have had, in another life, and that’s all. We’re through.”

I shook my head and jiggled the knob again. “I…I don’t want to have this discussion through a door.”

“Well, I’m not opening it because there’s nothing else to say.” Something hit the wood door, and I wasn’t sure if it was his hand or his head. His shadow didn’t move. “Look. If I open the door, I’ll cave. I’ll touch you. Kiss you. Make love to you. And it’ll hurt too damn much. I thought I could settle for the scraps of you, of living in the moments you could spare. But this morning proved I’m too selfish for that. I want all of you. And I can’t have you.”

Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to let them fall. “But you said you wouldn’t want more. That you could never see yourself settling down long-term.”

“I know I said that. Things change.” Silence, and then: “People change.”

“No.” I shook my head again, even though he couldn’t see me. Jackson was being smart, making the mature, sensible decision, but even knowing this, I couldn’t stop acting like a thwarted child. “We had a deal. We were going to be together until we couldn’t be together anymore. Until you left or I got married. We had a deal.”

“The deal’s off.” He stepped back. I saw his shadow pull away from me, and I felt the distance all the way to my soul. “Lilly, you’re giving up control of your future to save thousands of strangers. It’s honorable and brave. Give me up now, so I can save myself.”

I let go of the knob, because he was right. I should let him go. “I gave you everything I could.”

“Yeah.” He paused. “It wasn’t enough.”

He was right again. It wasn’t.

The only way I could give him everything was if I called off the wedding.

Things went full circle as once again I was arguing with a man about my future. Only, now I was the selfish one. “Jackson…please.”

He let out a sound that was half laugh, half groan. “If you’re ready to walk away, ready to live your own damn life for yourself, say it. I’ll be yours, and you’ll be mine, and nothing will stop us. I’ll do my best to make you happy, and we can give this thing a real try. Just tell me you’ll stop living for the world and start living for us. Say the words, and I’ll let you in.”

I stared at the door. I wanted to. Yearned to. They were on the tip of my tongue, the words he wanted to hear, begging to be set free. But I couldn’t turn my back on all those people. And Derek was right, in a way. If I let Hastings International collapse, knowing I could have saved it, I would blame myself, and I could end up blaming Jackson for making me choose.

So I said nothing, because I couldn’t.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” he said, his voice tired. “It’s time for you to go back to focusing on Derek. Your life. Leave me alone.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, holding back the sobs trying to escape. “I’ll g-go.”