I stood up from the chair so fast it screeched over the hardwood floor. I wished I could say no to all of his help. That I had the resources to do this on my own, but I didn’t. But just because I needed help didn’t mean that I needed to pull him in any deeper. I had to have a fence around his help. For my sake.

For his. I could not rely on him for any more than those things that I could not do without.

“I wish I could say I don’t need your help…but I do. Clearly, I don’t even know where to start. And your lawyers would be a big help. I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, Dylan,” I snapped. “I’m not without means. I have money. I’m not as rich as you, but I can pay you back.”

He watched me, solemn and serious, and nodded. “All right. Why don’t you go lie down for a while,” he said. “And I’ll set up a conference call.”

Oh, what an incredible comfort that would be! To go lie down on that bed, curl up in those sheets that smelled like Dylan and let him make a few phone calls.

But it was comfort I did not deserve, and could not take. Not if I had any intention of being able to look myself in the mirror with any kind of pride.

I had to go home.

I took a deep breath and began the painful process of removing all but what was necessary of Dylan Daniels from my life. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “For lying.”

“I understand why you did.”

“You…seem so calm.” I thought that if I’d found out that everything I believed about a person was a lie and that I’d been sucked into something as filthy as adultery, I wouldn’t be quite so forgiving.

“Baby, I’m fucking furious. I’m…crazy pissed, and if I ever have the pleasure of getting my hands on this Hoyt asshole, I will end him. But I’m not mad at you. You were protecting yourself. And that I understand.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For…all of this. For…” calling me. For letting me call you. For keeping me safe. For the pleasure you showed me how to give to myself and the even greater pleasure you gave to me. For making me tell you this secret. For…for helping me now, when I feel so alone. “For everything.”

I sobbed again and pressed my hands to my face. It was over. This was goodbye and I couldn’t believe how sad I was. How grief had carved a hole in my stomach. I wanted to walk away from him with my head held high and perhaps a lying smile on my face, but I couldn’t even manage that.

“Shhhh,” he said, pulling me into his chest. I soaked him in as best I could. His scent. His touch. Everything. I memorized as much as I could for the Dylan Daniels–free days ahead of me. All of them. “Shhhh. Why don’t you go lie down for a while,” he said. “You got about twenty more hours on that birthday wish.”

No. I didn’t. I had about twenty more minutes.

I wrapped my hand around his shirt, feeling his heart pound under my fingers.

“I can’t stay.”

“Come on, now,” he said against my temple. He put his arms around my shoulders. “You haven’t slept much in two days. Take some time.”

I’d taken all the time I could. I’d been greedy. A liar. So much so I didn’t recognize myself. Now that the secret was out, I couldn’t look back at the things I’d done and see any of it that wasn’t desperate and selfish.

I’d played at being Layla and I allowed myself to use this man in a pretty unconscionable way.

“I’ll take your lawyer’s phone number, but I won’t be going to Charleston—”

“You’re going to Charleston.”

“Dylan, please, don’t make me more indebted to you than I already am.”

“It’s not a debt, Annie. It’s help.”

“I used you, Dylan. To make myself feel better. To allow myself to forget that I was married.”

He shook his head, and those sleepy hooded eyes were so sad. So serious. “I used you too, Annie. I have things I’d like to forget too, and for a while, being with you let me.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It is exactly the same.”

“Then…I need to go home for both of our sakes.”

He watched me for a long time and then, maybe, he agreed with me. Or maybe he just saw that despite my tears and my grief I was more than serious. “I’ll get the car.”

I shook my head. “You’re not going to take me. Margaret can take me. Or the man who brought me here. Not you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“A clean break. For both of us. Nothing has changed, Dylan. We still need to end this. And I think it’s better to end it now. Like we’d planned before I told you about Hoyt.”

“Everything is different now, Annie. Everything.”

“No. Nothing is different. Not one thing. You just know who I really am. This is how we end, Dylan. The only way for us to end.” He looked like he was going to argue. “Are you forgetting that Ben is down there?”

“I don’t give a shit about Ben,” he snapped.

I lifted my eyes to his and told him what I didn’t fully understand yet, that despite Ben’s crimes, the ones I knew about and the ones I didn’t, I still cared. “I do.”

And I care about you, too much to drag you off this beautiful mountain into my swamp. Even for a minute.

He stepped back, rubbing his hands through his hair. “This is what you want?”

“This is what I want.”

“Fine,” he said, stepping back again. “I’ll get Margaret. But you’re keeping that damn phone. And when I call you’re going to answer. It’s nonnegotiable.”

“Thank you,” I said.

For one long moment the attraction between us, the connection, the desire and all that lust, tied us together in a bond so strong I had no idea how we were going to break it. Maybe it couldn’t be broken. Perhaps for the rest of my life I would feel this way for this man I could not have.

Or maybe, in time, things could be different between us. I could stand up on my own two feet. Divorce Hoyt, see him punished for what he’d done, and then come back here to this mountain. To Dylan. I could pay him back the money I owed him.

I smiled through my tears, pierced by a bittersweet ache.

“There are things you still don’t know,” he said, as if he could read my thoughts. “About me. I’m still not a man to be building fantasies around.”

I shook my head, because there was nothing I could find out about him that would change how I felt. “It wouldn’t matter.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I know you,” I breathed, putting my hand out to touch him, but he shrugged away. Flinched. My heart squeezed at his rejection. My eyes burned.

“No, baby. No. If I touch you,” he said in a voice like a gravel road, “you won’t leave, not for a while. So I’m not going to hug you. Or kiss you. But I want to. Leave here knowing that. I want you.”

I’d never been wanted. Maybe somewhere deep in the recesses of my mother’s heart she’d wanted me, but Hoyt certainly never had. But I believed Dylan when he said that and I held onto his want as hard as I could.

“I want you too,” I said. He nodded once, giving a heavy jerk, and then he headed for the front door. “I’ll get Margaret.”

I knew when he walked out that door he wasn’t going to be back. And that was good. Better. Easier.

My stomach churned. Feeling like I might throw up, I ran into the bathroom. But there was nothing in my body but nerves and regret and half a bottle of champagne. I splashed water on my face and washed my hands. My body smelled like sex and Dylan and I wasn’t ready to wash that away, so I resisted the siren song of the shower.

When I came back out of the bathroom, Margaret was there. Putting all the food in big Ziploc bags. And then putting the Ziploc bags in another bag.

“You all right?” she asked, watching me with narrowed, knowing eyes.

I nodded; words were really beyond me.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” I breathed. She stuck two of the bottles of wine from the fridge into the bag and some other things. Strawberries. Melon. More cheese. “Here you go,” she said, holding the bag out to me. “You got some cookies and cinnamon rolls. Some of the wine. The good prosciutto. I gave you all the fruit—you’re going to want to eat that soon, before it goes bad. Some of that cheese and a bunch of crackers.”