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“Where are you going?” she asked.

Josh exhaled loudly, a sneer on his lips.

“I saw everything, Kitty. You couldn’t wait one evening for me?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I know you were drunk this afternoon, but I didn’t think you would go and kiss Daniel. Not after what I said to you. Not after I told you what happened with Tabitha. How she couldn’t wait one night for me either.”

Kitty looked at his face. In the pale light, he was achingly gorgeous but oh so angry. Hehadseen Daniel’s kiss.

“It’s not what it looked like. He kissedme.”

Josh huffed. “From where I stood, it didn’t look like he was the only one doing the kissing.”

Kitty’s mouth gaped. “I’d never do that. I waited all evening for you. You didn’t even send me a message.”

“I did. I texted to let you know I was on my way.”

“I don’t even know where my phone is. I gave it to, to…” Kitty’s voice trailed off. “Daniel.” Kitty sighed.

Daniel had taken her phone and put it somewhere safe. She would’ve never seen Josh’s text.

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. How can I trust you? I can’t be on a relationship rollercoaster where I don’t know where I stand. Not again.”

Kitty’s brows knotted, and fury bubbled up from deep inside her. The anger she didn’t know she held surged up through her body, and she screwed both hands into tight fists.

“Are you serious? You’re insisting on certainty fromme? Josh, you’ve done nothing but mess me about. One minute we’re fine. Then I don’t hear from you for days at a time, weeks even. I don’t care how hurt you’ve been in the past. You can’t treat people like that! It’s not fair.”

His face remained a mask as if he hadn’t heard her. This cruel, closed-off Josh wasn’t the one she’d fallen in love with. Kitty’s stomach curled up at the irony as the thought struck her. She’d lost her heart to an unattainable idea, not the reality that stood before her. A hot breeze ruffled through her hair, and she held it to the side of her neck, coiling it into a tight bunch.

“If you can’t trust me, that’s your problem. But you need to grow up, Josh. I refuse to be with somebody who runs away or buries his head in the sand at the first sign of trouble. It’s exhausting, and I don’t have the time.”

A stunned look settled on Josh’s face. “What was I meant to think?”

“I don’t know, but if you can’t trust me, then there’s no point in us even having this conversation.”

Josh’s hand left his side and hovered at his thigh. He clenched and unclenched his fingers over and over as if wondering whether to reach out to her.

“Can we talk about this?” he said. “I don’t even know what to think or feel right now.”

Kitty let out a breath, letting go of her hair. “No, we can’t. I really care about you, but right now, I’m done.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Kitty regretted them. There was no going back. With one final look at his startled face, she turned back towards Patricia’s house and walked away. Kitty listened for steps behind her, waited for a hand to touch her arm and bid her to wait, but it never came. In one day, she’d loved him, and now, she’d lost him.

52

KITTY

Kitty pickedup her phone from the side when it buzzed. She’d found it last night, stowed safely in her bag, stuffed behind an urn in the garden. It was hard to believe Daniel had hidden it from her, but it was the only logical explanation. Kitty already had a message from him begging for forgiveness.

Daniel:I suppose love will make you do silly things.

She was tempted to text back that he’d never have put her in such a position if he did love her, but she resisted. The less contact, the better.

Kitty also found the text from Josh telling her he was on his way. Would last night have gone differently if she’d seen it? She’d spent most of the morning discussing that with Julia. It felt good to finally tell somebody else what’d been going on for the last few weeks. How the tug of war between her heart and her brain had consumed her thoughts.

Her phone chirped again. Half expecting it to be a second text from Daniel, Kitty was surprised to seeit was from Thea.