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“It wouldn’t have happened without you,” he maintains.

“It might have happened easier or sooner without me,” I argue. “Imagine if you’d been out there”—I wave to the shadowed mountains—“with a fan like Ember. You heard what Gabe said about viewers picking up on the animosity between us. You wouldn’t have had that if you’d been with someone else, which means you might have won the public back sooner,andyou wouldn’t have been abandoned by Hawke and Bentley.”

That realization hits me hard, especially as I recall what Gabe said in the foyer:It’s your own fault things got so carried away. He’s right, even if neither Zander nor I could have known that our early strained interactions might result in us being stranded together.

“That might be so,” Zander says slowly, “but it’s onlybecausewe were left on our own that I became unguarded enough to make the public like me again.” He pauses, then says, pointedly, “And I believe the word Gabe used was ‘chemistry,’ not ‘animosity.’ There’s a big difference.”

I’m careful not to look at him as I reply, “Whatever he called it, and however things turned out, what I’m saying is, you earned Titan all on your own because of whoyouare. And I’m—I’m really happy for you.”

There’s a moment of silence before Zander says, quietly, “You could have fooled me.”

Hearing his forlorn tone that’s full of both awareness and painful understanding, I have to blink fast to keep my tears at bay. I can’t stop myself from taking his hand, gripping hard as I angle my body to look straight into his sad blue eyes. The grief in them makes my heart ache as I realize how much this is killing him—and how much it’s killing me, too.

But it has to be done. And while I might greedily want to put it off for as long as I can, it’ll only hurt us both more if I keep delaying the inevitable.

So I don’t.

“You know this will never work,” I whisper, holding his mournful gaze. “The last few days we were in our own bubble, but now that we’re back, the reality is, our worlds are too different. Youknowthat, Zander. Tell me I’m wrong.”

His fingers tighten, and his free hand moves to trap mine between both of his palms. “We can make it work.”

I’m already shaking my head before he finishes speaking. “We can’t—and I’m not sure that we should.” That has him turning still, so I rush to explain, “You’re about to be locked in a studio filming the movie of the decade, and all your attention needs to be on that. And itshouldbe—because you deserve this, and you should be able to enjoy every second of it without distraction.” I squeeze his fingers. “And as for me?—”

“You need to see the world and find your place in it,” Zander says with a sad, knowing sigh, “not stuck in LA waiting for me to finish an eighteen-hour day on set after which I’ll be too exhausted to see you, let alone do anything else.”

My eyebrows shoot upward at his presumption that I would have gone back to Los Angeles with him, especially since we never once talked about the possibility. But despite my surprise—and my knee-jerk reaction to wonder why it would bemewho has to uproot my life, before realizing his assumption is based on my desire to travel, which is fair—I have to fight back new tears at the image he’s just laid out. Because part of mewantsthat. Iwantto see his home and witness his life. I want to meet his adoptive parents and spend more time with Summer and Maddox. I want to be there waiting for him at the end of a long day, regardless of whether we only have a few minutes together before he needs to crash. I want to be at his side during the highs and lows of everything he experiences in the utterly insane industry he works in. Iwantall of that—desperately.

But I also know the timing isn’t right. I need to see to my dreams first before I can support him in his. For once, I need to be selfish, even if that means sacrificing something precious in the process:him.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, feeling my heart break at the sight of his eyes gleaming with tears. “I wish things could be different. But my mum used to always tell me that everything happens for a reason, and I have to believe she’s right. So let’s be grateful for the time we had, knowing it was special for us both, and that we’ll never forget it.”

“Why are you making this sound like a goodbye?” Zander asks hoarsely.

“Because itis,” I say. “It has to be.”

“We might have to go our separate ways, but we live in a world of technology,” he says, not understanding. “We can phone each other and video call and text and email and?—”

I pull my hand from his and jump to my feet, unable to remain sitting with so much emotion flooding my veins. I begin to pace on the grass, the fairy lights dappling my white dress with gold splotches. “Do you honestly think you’d be able to handle that?” I ask. “Because to me, staying in touch but not being with each other would be like... like cutting off an arm and slowly bleeding to death.”

Zander stands as well. “So... what? You’re saying you want to cauterize the wound? Is that really what you want—a clean break where we never see or talk to each other again?Ever?”

“I don’twantthat,” I say, throwing my hands out to the side. “Ineedthat. Anything else would be too painful. And you need it just as much as I do.”

“No, Charlie, what I need isyou.”

At his words, I stop pacing and stare at him. I can’t hold in my tears any longer, letting them drip silently down my cheeks.

Zander watches them fall, one after the other, and then he slowly closes his eyes, a look of devastation coming over him, mixed with resignation—and defeat.

He steps forward until he’s standing before me, reaching out to gently wipe my tears away as he says, his voice achingly soft, “I’m sorry—you’re right. I just—I don’t want to let you go.” He exhales a trembling breath. “But I’m going to. Because you deserve to be happy, Charlie Hart. And I’d never forgive myself if I became the person who was keeping you from flying free.”

God, why does he have to be soperfect?

More tears fill my eyes, and I nearly take back everything I said, leaping into his arms and saying I want to go to LA with him to stay by his side forever. But I can see the resolve settling into his features now, and I know without asking that he wouldn’t let me even if I begged. He won’t allow me to forfeit my dreams, and I—I?—

I love him for that.

Ilovehim.