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She’s afraid of spooking me, but it’s too late for that. I feel the urge to deny, but I woman up.

“I do. I think even he knows that.”

“Lux, I don’t think you do, though.”

I frown at her. “What the hell are you talking about? I just said I do.”

She regards me over her wine glass. “The way you love him is not the way you loved Mateo. You love him in a selfless way.” The lilt at the end of her statement is almost a question. “You love that man deeply. You love his daughter just as deeply. You shouldn’t walk away from something like that without making sure there’s no way to make it work.”

“Who are you? Where’s the woman who plots relationships better than any novel? You taught me that it all has to make sense: the actions, the gestures, the emotional connection.”

She smiles. “I mean that from the bottom of my soul. To prove it, let me ask you this. Think of the actions from the beginning of your relationship with Ollie to the end. Was there a natural progression? Did he do what he said he would do? What were his gestures to show his love for you? Did those fulfill the need within you?”

I think back to how we started. He was scared of doing the relationship thing because of Ayla. Then when I put my foot down and voiced my opinion, he didn’t run. He faced his fears. He came down hard on me when I made the mistake, but he also came back to own his part, what he did wrong. That’s very Ollie. He’s responsible. He’s a real man.

“Yes. He showed me,” I say. “I’m just afraid of opening up like I did with him again. I also don’t want to do the whole thing and then have it not work out because of Ayla.”

“You really love that kid. And that’s a great thing. But you’re doing the same thing he was doing: hiding behind her. You owe it to yourself and him to try. You don’t want to spend your whole life wondering.”

“I’m just not ready right now. I don’t think I’m letting myself heal. I want to do that.”

She nods. “That’s fair. You have to be sure before you take the step, and there’s nothing wrong with you taking your time?—”

My phone rings, and it’s loud, rattling both of us. It’s the ringer I have saved for Chase. I grab it and don’t let him talk. “I haven’t been gone that long, and you already miss me?”

“I actually do,” Chase says.

I chuckle. “You have no one else to bug.”

“Something like that.” His voice is low, and he doesn’t take the bait.

“What’s wrong?”

“Lux, are you with Maeven?”

I’m about to crack a joke about him remembering her, and Lauren killing both of them, but his somberness hits me. “Yeah. What’s wrong, Chase?”

“Something’s happened. I hate having to tell you this on the phone. I wish you were here…” His voice goes out, and he clears his throat. “Marilyn fell down the stairs this morning. Eddha called Cam this morning, and we headed to New York. She slipped away a few minutes after we got here.”

“Slipped away?”

His breath fills the line. “She died, Lux.”

My heart drops, the thump so loud it sends me forward. My hand grips my phone. She died.

My brain races, trying to grasp all the words he just said. Marilyn is gone. My mother is dead.

“Oh God. I just spoke to her at the gala. She wanted to talk to me. I…Chase…God…”

Please, Luciana, I just want to talk.

Her words echo in my ears. I rejected her and didn’t pick up her calls. Now I won’t see her again.

Across from me, Maeven reaches for my hand. I can tell by her wide eyes that she heard everything.

I don’t know when I stopped listening to Chase or when she took the phone from my hand, but within minutes, we are out of there and in a cab to the house.

Maeven is still talking to my brother as we move through the house. I head straight for the closet and take out my suitcase. I didn’t get to take anything out of the big suitcase, so we are both in tandem, running around the room and throwing my shit back in the carry-on.