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She starts to sob, and my soul rejects the sound. I swore I’d never make her cry anything other happy tears. I’m breaking my word and breaking her heart. I hate seeing her hurting, but I can’t comfort her.

“I have to go.”

“Please don’t go,” she whispers, and I shake my head. I can’t stay here and listen to her cry.

“I have to. I can’t think here.” I grab my wallet.

“Where are you going?” She stands right in front of me.

“I don’t know.” I walk to my office and grab my laptop, my iPad, my passport, and my Kindle. While I gather, I plan what I’m doing next.

I’ll buy a ticket at the airport and fly straight to LA and then drive to my house in Calabasas. I can be alone there and think.

I can’t look at her. Because then I’ll want to stay, and I can’t. I walk back out to the foyer where she’s still sitting on the stairs, sniffling loudly. “When will you be back?” she calls after me when I turn for the door.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

CHAPTER 27

RUNNING IN CIRCLES

Omar

I plannedon going to the airport. But then I remembered Reece was coming tomorrow and that I have a key to his place that he gave me to use in case of emergencies.

If this doesn’t qualify as an emergency, I don’t know what would.

I send him a text to let him know I’m there and turn my phone off.

I don’t want to talk to anyone. About anything.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this conflicted about or angry with anyone as I am with Jules right now. I don’t believe for a second that she killed her father. I can’t imagine her—alone, so young, facing an impossible future after losing so much. I just don’t understand why she didn’t tell me. But the lie, the fact that she was going to let me go and make a fond memory.

I lie down on the couch, vacillating from wishing I’d never met her, to wishing she’d trusted me, to understanding why shedidn’t. But when sleep finally claims me, all I know for certain is that my heart is completely broken.

The smellof coffee wakes me up. I glance at my watch and groan. It’s a few minutes past noon. The clink of plates from the kitchen brings me fully awake. “What the hell?” I rush down the stairs two at a time until I see Reece sitting at the kitchen table. “What are you doing here?”

“Last I checked this is my place,” he says and looks me up and down. “You look like hell.”

“I thought you were coming tomorrow.”

“Itistomorrow.” He raises an eyebrow.

I realize for the first time that the light in the room is from the windows he’s drawn the blinds up on and not the overhead lights I used last night. “Shit.” I run a hand through my hair and look around the room. I should be at home.

“Ifyou’velost track of the days, then whatever’s got you here must be a crisis.”

I scowl at him. “I’m not having a crisis.”

He studies me with a dubious frown. “Last time you had this much hair on your face was after Chelsea let you go.”

I curl my lip at his insinuation and brush the crumbs off my T-shirt. “I’m fine. Just being a bum. Is that a crime?”

“What happened with your lady?”

“How’d you know?”

“Because you told the whole world that she’d made a believer out of you. Then you text that you need a place to crash, when you have a whole house less than thirty minutes away.“