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Either I wanted to forgive her, move on, and try to rebuild, or I wanted to spend my life punishing her. There was no question we’d already wasted plenty of time.

“Liam?”

I opened my eyes and saw the uneasiness lingering in her gaze. “I forgive you. And I want this to work between us. That’s not going to happen if I continue to dwell on the pain and bitterness I’ve felt for years. So, I am sorry. I’m trying. I promise I’m trying to move forward. There’re just a lot of questions. And fear, too, if I’m honest.”

Layla’s expression was marred by sorrow. “I wish I could go back and do it all over again. I’d do everything differently.”

“I know you would.” I gave her hand a light squeeze, released it, and picked up my sandwich again. She did the same with her wrap. “I know you said you didn’t find the career or the success you were hoping for, but how about you tell me what you did find when you left?”

Some of the tension eased out of her shoulders, andshe offered a small smile before taking a bite of her food. “I found a job and a friend.”

A wave of jealousy waved over me. She’d found a friend. A guy? I felt so conflicted. It pained me to think she’d been with anyone else, while at the same time I wouldn’t have wanted her to be alone in a city like that without a single friend.

Swallowing down that green-eyed monster, I took another bite of my sandwich and said, “Tell me about both.”

Her face brightened. “I met Frankie one week after I arrived in the city. It was the same day I’d gotten my first job. We spent an hour talking in the coffee shop that day after I overhead Frankie talking to the barista about needing a roommate.”

“Frankie?”

I could feel the way my face twisted with disgust, almost as though I’d sucked on a lemon before I said the name. How had she moved in with some guy just one hour after meeting him?

Layla beamed at me. “Yes. It’s a nickname. Short for Francesca.” The tension unfurled in my gut. Frankie was a girl. “Anyway, Frankie is probably the best thing to come out of my move to Manhattan. We both worked a lot of hours, but it was nice to have someone there to spend time with during the infrequent downtime.

I flashed her a smile. I hated that she’d left, but I was glad she hadn’t been alone. “So, where did you work? It seems like you found a job quickly.”

Nodding, she sipped from her drink. “I did. But itwas just a job. I needed something to be able to survive, so I took the first thing I could find, which was a position as a ticket seller for Broadway shows.”

“No kidding?”

“It wasn’t anything spectacular. It was an hourly wage job that gave me enough to pay for my half of the rent and the things I needed to survive.”

Curious, wanting to learn more, I pressed, “Did you do that the entire time you were there?”

She shot me a look of disbelief. “I might not have ended up where I wanted to, but I did have some ambition, Liam.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.” The last thing I wanted was for her to think I was looking down on her for what she’d been doing. Sure, I might have questioned why she would have stayed away for so long working an hourly wage job that she could have easily found here, but I wasn’t trying to make her feel bad at all.

“With the scraps of free time I had, I tried to research different career paths,” Layla began. “Nothing had ever really spoken to me the way I know you, your brothers, and your sisters have all experienced in your professional lives. So, as I continued that search for something that would spark some interest and excitement, I continued to apply for open positions at my current job. Over the years, I moved up the ladder, going from ticket seller to usher to where I was most recently as the box office manager.”

“That’s excellent, Layla.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. It was nothing spectacular.”

I reached for her hand again. “You say that like what I’m doing is some glamorous job. Sure, I’m in charge of an entire crew responsible for the theme park, but at the end of the day, I’m using my hands fixing amusement park rides or building villas throughout the winter. The work I do is important, but it’s not more or less important than what you’ve been doing. Layla, you were a box office manager for Broadway shows. In New York City. Don’t act like that job didn’t come with a lot of responsibility and pressure. It’s crazy, because that’s the kind of job I could see you working with your level of organization and focus.”

Something I couldn’t quite read washed over her expression. “Really?”

“Yes. I’ve always told you that you’d excel at whatever you choose to do, but it seems like you found something perfect for you and didn’t even realize it.” I shook my head, unable to understand why she felt the way she did about herself. “I don’t know why you seem to think there’s this hierarchy or power struggle between us, like there’s some system by which I’m going to measure you to decide if you’re worthy. You were worthy the moment you made me happy. That’s all that ever mattered to me.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I never should have left.”

My thumb stroked over her knuckles. “But you did. And we can’t change that now. At this point, we need to figure out what happens next. That’s the best thing we can do forourselves.”

“I thought… I thought you wanted to try to work things out,” she stammered.

“I do. I meant, tactically. What’s next? You have a job in the city, and I’m not leaving Landing.”

“Well, I don’t exactly think I have a job any longer,” she confessed. “They called a few weeks ago, asking what my plan was for returning, but with my mom’s recovery being what it is, I couldn’t give them an answer. They said they wouldn’t be able to hold my job indefinitely. So, there’s that.”