And without another word, Asher strides out of the auditorium with the entire town staring at the door she just left through.

  It takes everything I have not to chase after her. To remain here in a professional capacity and do the job I’m here to do . . . and not put my personal matters first. Not put her first.

  The gavel strikes several times as the mayor tries to gain back control of the meeting despite his own ashen pallor. Serves the fucker right.

  “Settle down, everyone. Settle down.” He clears his throat and tugs on the tie tight over his throat. “We clearly have other things to do than to deal with nonsense and fodder that is unneeded. Are we ready to vote on whether or not The Retreat has met our demands and can now have its final inspection to receive its occupancy permit?”

  Asher

  I can’t breathe.

  My chest burns as I gulp in huge breaths. My tears sting as I fight them back. I have to get as far away from City Hall and that prick of a man as I can. The ends of the earth wouldn’t be far enough.

  It doesn’t matter that he showed his true colors or that he humiliated me or that I successfully stood up for myself. Those are all things I’ve learned to deal with being Asher Wells.

  It’s that I didn’t get the loan.

  So, I drive.

  Down every back mountain road.

  Through every stretch of field.

  I ignore the calls coming and the texts alerting me from where I threw my cell on the back seat.

  My loan was declined. I was declined.

  The email came in halfway through the city council meeting. Thank you for your application but we regret to inform you that you have been declined for the applicable loan. I was stunned. Shocked. Hurt. And there wasn’t a thing I could say or do about it in the middle of Grossman’s grandiose show.

  But he knew I didn’t get it. That’s the kicker. He knew before I did, or else he never would have said what he said. Goddamn small-town life. I should have thought it through. I should have figured Grossman would know since his daughter-in-law is the bank’s branch manager.

  So I lashed out. I fired back. I tried to put him in his place and embarrass him just as much as he’d tried to humiliate me.

  It’s all I could do.

  I bang the heel of my hand on the steering wheel and give in to the need to scream at the top of my lungs. The sound is smothered by the wind but does nothing to abate the anger owning me.

  It’s like I was handed the highest of highs with Hillary’s call about being awarded the contract, followed by the lowest of lows, knowing I can no longer afford all the things I still need to meet those contract requirements.

  I pull over to the side of the road and stare at some horses grazing in a field until my eyes blur. Then I put the car in gear and drive some more, making a point to be as far away from town as possible.

  The last thing I want to see is people.

  I wanted this for me.

  I needed this for me.

  And yeah, sure, it’s all set up and I can still hold events, but I practically maxed out my credit card to get it to this point. And my contract is contingent upon these improvements. And, and, and . . .

  And so, I keep driving.

  Ledger

  “You want to tell me what this is?” I ask Hillary when I storm into the office, holding up the list of vendors and pointing to The Fields.

  I’m worried and furious and feel like I’m going out of my mind because I can’t find Asher anywhere. Fucking anywhere, when I looked for what feels like forever. This is a small town. I should be able to find her.

  But I couldn’t.

  And I’m insane with fucking worry over it.

  Hillary meets my glare with a measured stare. She never glances down at the list in my hand because she already knows what it is. “It’s the vendor list. The title states that too.”

  “No shit. I’m talking about The Fields being on this list.” I walk from one side of the office to the other, unable to sit still.

  “I do believe you tasked me with finding local vendors to create inviting packages for our guests, and I did just that,” she says cautiously. But there is a smugness in her tone, a defiance in the way she won’t back down that has me gritting my teeth.

  “And you didn’t think to tell me about this one?”

  “Miss Wells explicitly asked me not to.”

  “Excuse me?” I shout. “Did you forget who your boss is?”

  “No.” She pauses and waits for my feet to stop moving and for me to look at her. “As I said, Miss Wells specifically asked that you not know about her proposal. She wanted this on her own merit and not because she’s sleeping with the owner.”

  Her words put fire on my temper in an instant. “Of course, she did,” I mutter, needing somewhere to direct my anger because it’s still there and it’s still raw, but not so much at Asher anymore. Now it’s at fucking everyone else in this goddamn town. Here I am thinking—stewing—raging over the fact that she’s hiding things from me—dejected that she didn’t think she could share them with me—and of course, it’s just her being stubborn as always and not needing anyone.

  “It’s a solid business proposal. Well-thought-out. She did her research. I was impressed with it, with her, but more importantly, it’ll be a great option for our guests.”

  “The proposal?” I ask, my hand out waiting for it. Hillary meets me with the lift of her brows. “Please.”

  She reaches into her file drawer and hands it over to me. I flip through its pages, and Hillary is right. The proposal is professional, concise, informative, and it doesn’t hurt that the pictures look like everything she promises in the text. It’s the last page that cites the improvements still in the works that makes everything click.

  The loan.

  She needs the loan to finish these items.

  Without the loan, she doesn’t have this. Fucking Grossman blasted that very clearly across the City Hall meeting.

  The bastard.

  Christ. I blow a sigh out and toss the proposal on the desk.

  “Ledger.” Hillary’s smile is faint, and her eyes are soft when I look up to meet them. “Just because you love her—”

  “I don’t love her,” I growl. Saying it in my head is one thing. Admitting it out loud is a whole other ballgame.

  She chuckles. “Yes. You do. And that love doesn’t give you the right to rush in here like a white knight and save the day for her. She’s independent for a reason. Clearly, she’s been hurt by life in ways I don’t know—but I can see it, because I used to be her. Asserting my independence, needing something that was wholly my own, was a way to take a piece of myself back. It was how I healed. It’s what led me to be sitting right here in this office with you. Asher doesn’t need fixing, Ledger. She just needs someone to hold her hand if she fails, to celebrate her when she succeeds, and to listen when she speaks. There’s so much more said in silence than in a room full of people talking.”

  I feel helpless. it’s a miserable feeling for a man who’s always in control.

  “I don’t want to fix her, Hillary. I just want her to realize she’s not alone anymore.”

  “Have you told her that? That might be a good place to start.”

  I nod.

  Telling Asher that she’s not alone anymore is a good start. Perhaps showing her too. But fuck, how do I do that if I can’t fucking find her? How can I reassure her that I’ve got her back? That she can trust in me?

  “She’s independent for a reason. Asher doesn’t need fixing. She just needs someone to hold her hand if she fails, to celebrate her when she succeeds, and to listen when she speaks.”

  Haven’t I been listening all this time? Isn’t that what I do best with her when we talk on the phone, lie in each other’s arms, have picnics—

  Fuck, could she be there? At our place?

  It’s the only place I haven’t checked.

  One place, and I hope to fucking God I’m right.

  The wildflowers are bright and the sound of birds is loud as I make my way through the underbrush to the old willow tree.

  My chest constricts when I see her sitting there against its trunk, her head back with her face to the sky, her eyes closed.

  And if I ever had any doubt before, I sure as hell don’t now.

  I love Asher Wells.

  I’m in love with Asher Wells.

  Plain.

  Simple.

  Completely.

  I stand there and stare at her. I know she knows I’m here, so I struggle with what to say or how to say it. Hillary’s advice circles in my head.

  “Thank you for standing up for me today. You didn’t need to,” I say, feeling like I’m tiptoeing around what we need to talk about but needing a jumping-off place to start somewhere.

  “Yes, I did.” She doesn’t move, doesn’t open her eyes, just murmurs the three words.

  “I’m proud of you for sticking up for yourself today, but God, how I wish you would have let me defend you.”

  “I don’t need anyone to defend me, Ledger. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can. Fucking hell, I know you can, but would it hurt you to need my help every once in a while? To need me?” My voice breaks, and she finally opens her eyes and stares at me with a storm roiling in those gray irises of hers.

  We hold each other’s gazes, and I have a feeling this is going to be one of the most important conversations I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve negotiated deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I’ve yanked contracts off tables without so much as a flinch. But this is the first time I’ve ever had to fight for something on a personal level. Truth be told, I’m fucking terrified I’m going to mess this up.

  I walk forward and lower myself to my knees so that I’m sitting in front of her. “Why didn’t you tell me your plans for The Fields? About the proposal? I mean, I understand wanting it to be awarded on your own merit, but . . . you completely shut me out of something that is so much a part of you. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie to me?”

  Asher

  He stares at me, the muscle in his jaw ticking, his eyes imploring.

  “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “You chose not to tell me. Same difference.”

  “It’s not.”

  “To me it is. Hasn’t there been enough lies that have come between us, Asher? No more lies. No more deception. No more lying by omission. Please.”

  “Ledger. I didn’t mean to—”

  “You opted to say you were simply updating the farm rather than tell me you were creating a whole new business for yourself. Why? Why couldn’t you tell me, Asher? What is it about me that made you think you couldn’t confide in me?”

  My stomach twists in a knot at the hurt etched in the lines of his handsome face. “I know you won’t understand, but I just . . . I needed to do this for me.”

  “Do you think I would have stopped you? That I would have tried to control it? Your transformation of The Fields, your idea to make it a destination, is incredible. There’s no way you could have thought I’d tell you otherwise. So, what is it, Asher? What are you not telling me?”

  You’re going to leave me, and I need something to soften the heartbreak.

  My hands tremble as I open and close my mouth. I don’t have an answer other than that.

  “What are we doing here, Ledger? Fooling ourselves? Pretending that your penance here isn’t up in a few weeks, and you’re not going to go back to your life, and I’m not going to go back to mine?” His expression falls at my words. “Is it too much to have one thing in my life that you haven’t touched? One thing that’s completely mine so I’m not reminded of you every time I’m around it or see it or think of it?”

  And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? That’s why this has been so important to me. I know he’s leaving and when he does, everything in this town, in my house, even the goddamn lavender fields, will remind me of him. And now, even my inescapable failure to start a business will be tied to him too.

  “So rather than talk about it, talk about us, you’d rather just bury your head in the sand and act like this—like we—didn’t happen?”

  “Bury my head in the sand? I think my actions are perfectly justifiable considering your intentions—your plans—are pretty self-explanatory.” I can feel my armor slipping on. Layer upon layer. Shielding me when I fear nothing is going to be able to protect me from the hurt that’s to come.

  “What the hell do you mean my plans are self-explanatory?” he demands.

  “It’s just a fling that will be over in a few weeks. Then your penance will be done and you’ll get to go back home.” I blink away the tears that those words cause. “I believe those were your words, weren’t they?”

  “Asher. No. You don’t understand.” He puts his hands on my knees and squeezes. I try not to flinch at his touch because everything inside of me is telling me to run, right now. To pull away while I can, but even I’m not that strong. He chuckles disbelievingly, but I feel like I’m being mocked, and it rubs me the wrong way.

  “So you didn’t say that?” I damn well know he did.

  “No. I did. It’s just”—he scrubs a hand through his hair—“my brothers were harassing me over what we, you and I, were. They wouldn’t let it go. The easiest way to get them off my back was to say something like that. To play it down so they’d back off . . .” He searches my eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything to me? Why didn’t you just flat-out ask me?”

  “Ask you? Why? So I could look like an idiot when you see how hurt I was because I thought we were more than that? After what happened before . . . do you think I wanted to open myself up more to you to be torn back apart?”

  He sighs, and I try to ignore the compassion in his eyes. The understanding. “And so you started to close down instead . . . to make it easier to walk away.”

  “This’ll never work,” I whisper the fear that has been creeping into my head for days.

  “Why not? Why can’t we make this work?”

  “Just ask anyone. It’s clear you’re the more important one here. For it to work, I’d have to be the one to pick up my life and walk away.”

  “Why is that such a bad thing? You live in a town that doesn’t treat you with the respect you deserve. That holds your mother’s past against you. Today at City Hall was case in point.”

  “But that’s not for you to decide,” I shout at him, rising to my feet. Needing to move, needing to think, and needing to fight. “And the fact that you assume it is without ever asking me should be enough in and of itself to explain my hesitation. You come first. Your work comes first . . . and frankly, I deserve better than being second to those things.”

  “I would never put you second.”

  My laugh is anything but humorous. “No? What about you and your ten-year plan, huh? The one you never waver from with its bullet points and set parameters. Unfortunately for me, a relationship with me”—loving me—“isn’t valid because it comes before its scheduled time.”

  “Don’t be like this, Ash. The plan . . .” He shakes his head in frustration. “It’s just that, a plan. Not set in stone. If anything, you’ve made me realize that life . . . it can’t be planned for. Hell, both times you’ve come into my life have been completely out of the blue. Completely unexpected . . . and I . . . fuck. I’m saying this all wrong.” Regret tinges his voice. So does hope. So does fear. “All you need to know is I want this, I want you.”

  “But on your terms,” I whisper.

  “I just can’t up and walk away from my life, Asher.” He follows me as I pace.

  “I get it. I know what that’s like because I left my life, my dream, to come back and care for my family. My gran is here, Ledger. So is The Fields. It’s my family legacy, much like S.I.N. is yours. I can’t leave it behind just as I’d never ask you to leave yours behind. This is how I make my mark. For me. You’re wealthy and revered in business, and no doubt believe you’re more important than I am because you basically own the world but—”

  “That’s not true—”

  “But that’s what it feels like to me. What you don’t get is that for the first time in so goddamn long, I feel relevant. Full of possibility and . . .” I lift my head to the sky and close my eyes. Too much. This is all just too much—emotion, fear, hope. I’m waiting for it to all come crashing down. And if not now, then when? “I just need time, Ledger. To think. To—”

  “This should be the easiest decision in your life, Ash. Choosing me should be the easiest decision.” His voice breaks, and it nearly kills me.

  “But I shouldn’t have to give up my life just to have you in it.”

  He hangs his head and sighs. “So just like that, you’re not going to try? Not fight for us?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Panic starts to claw at my throat.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “Ledger. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know . . . I don’t know how to feel.”

  Why do things I want always seem just out of reach? Acceptance, my career, my dreams for The Fields. Ledger.

  The only thing I’ve been able to grasp and hold on to is my sense of self. Who I am. And it’s taken me time to do that, to work through the grief from Pop’s death, and find that woman again. I refuse to give her up just to keep him.

  I blink back tears and force myself to meet his eyes. It’s only then that he speaks. “Maybe we need to take some time to think. A week. I don’t know. Maybe we just need some time for you to clear your head and me to . . . I don’t know.”

  I lose the battle, and my tears fall over my lashes and slide down my cheeks. I nod, even though I’m still not certain it’s what I truly want. “Maybe.”

  He takes a few steps toward me. “I once told you that only one girl has ever broken my heart before. That was you, Asher. And I swear to fucking God, I think you’re breaking it again.” He puts my face in his hands and presses the gentlest of kisses on my lips. “I love you, Asher Wells. I think I always have.”

  Those words should fill my heart, instead, they fracture it a little more.