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“Are you kidding me right now?” I say slowly.

“It’s ‘a private issue for family’? Has it occurred to you, Klaus, that I am like family to the Morgans?

I’m not ‘the press.’ I’ve known them longer than you have.

How many summer vacations have you spent in their North Carolina beach house?

How many middle-of-the-night phone calls from Phae have you fielded? ”

“From Phaedra?” he echoes with dismissive amusement.

“Too many. There’s friendship, and then there’s business.

I’m sure I get more of Phaedra’s midnight rants.

” Noting the anger on my face, he adjusts his approach.

“Talia, please. I didn’t intend for that to sound as it did.

And now you’re upset.” He extends an arm. “Come here and sit with me.”

“Your condescension is the last thing I need,” I snap. “I won’t be made to feel small, or unworthy of someone’s confidence—either Phaedra’s or yours.” After a withering pause, I throw my next words out, hoping to hurt him right back. “I don’t need the grief, and… I don’t even need you .”

Ouch—oh God…

It’s not inaccurate. I don’t “need” any man to complete me. But it’s also one of the biggest lies ever to pass my lips. I’ve fallen for Klaus Franke hard. But he obviously doesn’t trust me, and I’m unsure in this moment if that means he doesn’t respect me either.

Seeing him sitting across from me with that cool, unflappable stare, it occurs to me that what he shares of himself feels curated .

His outstretched hand withdraws. He rakes his fingers through his hair with a sigh. “I see. Is that how you feel, after all? I’m surprised.”

His alleged “surprise” sounds more like an intimidation strategy to make me walk back what I’ve said, and his lofty expression is pure Emerald Team Principal.

The hot tears hanging at my lower lashes get heavy enough to fall. I swipe them away, heart racing, mind scrambling for how to soften my assertion without yielding fully.

“I don’t need you,” I amend, “but I do want you, Klaus… and I want to know where this could go. But only if you’ll let me in. Like I said about Phae: I won’t be in unbalanced relationships anymore. I deserve better.”

“I don’t dispute it.” His tone is heartbreakingly impassive. Why is he suddenly retreating like this?

“What do you actually want from me?” I force the question out.

I know it’s a dramatic move, but I’m feeling stung and—to be honest—not particularly emotionally safe.

I’m not a big wielder of ultimatums, but my phrasing now feels perilously close.

“Something real? Just a repeat of that night in Abu Dhabi? Or maybe a ‘friend in the press’?”

I expect him to look at me—to be shocked, offended, to deny it.

To soften and usher us back onto the path I thought we were on when I knocked at the door of his suite, just minutes ago.

But his gaze remains anchored to the coffee table.

I allow an extra few seconds, waiting for him to say something.

Spurred by a heartache colored with embarrassment, I manage, “I think maybe this—you, me, all of it—was a bad idea. I do want you. But I want a lot of things that aren’t good for me.

I want to eat ice cream instead of broccoli.

I want to sleep in instead of working out.

With those things, I exert the discipline.

But I don’t have self-control around you. ”

He meets my eyes, and he looks ruined. I suppress the impulse to walk it all back, to feel sorrier for him than I do for myself right now.

“Truth to tell,” he murmurs wearily, “the power you have over me is daunting as well. The way it erodes my will is disturbing.”

Realization crystalizes in me before melting into a slurry of despair: This is not going to work. Attraction has blinded us both.

For months, I’ve taken our red flags and folded them into swans, like those cloth napkins at fancy restaurants.

“There’s nothing about us being together that makes sense,” I state with finality, hoping it might rattle him and spur some kind of declaration.

A long silence follows.

Where are the comforting magic words to pull this breakup back from the edge of the cliff and make me believe in something that, deep down, maybe I shouldn’t?

Klaus considers what I’ve said for a long time, and my stomach flip-flops. I want him to refute my harsh verdict, but… no such luck. Instead, he nods.

Why are you nodding? Fight me on this, dammit!

The way he leans back against the sofa cushions with a sigh, rubbing his face with both hands, tells me everything. It’s all in what he can’t say.

“Fine, then.” My voice is little more than a ragged whisper, and I clear my throat.

“Let’s cut our losses. This dance we’ve been doing is the emotional equivalent of”—I flash a bitter smile, remembering the moment in Abu Dhabi when I flung those crumpled euros at him—“throwing good money after bad.”

I stand and pick up my phone and purse. On my way to the door, I both fear and hope he’ll speak up. I pull the door shut slowly, quietly, so I’ll hear him if he calls me back at the last second. But it doesn’t happen.

By the time I’m in my own room and stepping into a searingly hot shower—still wearing the dress Klaus once said he loved; the silk wilting, sodden, ruined—I’ve committed myself to the task of picking out the stitches that man has set into my heart.