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‘You can tell Sienna that you got what you came for. She wanted to break the man responsible for her heartbreak. Well, she got him. Aiden left because of me. Sienna was hurt because of me. Karma complete. Now get out of the truck before I have to lift you out.’

Karma complete? What was he saying? She couldn’t break his heart, because to break his heart he’d have to…

‘If you’re worried about your flight home, don’t be. Just keep your distance and we’ll be fine. But tonight, I don’t want to breathe the same air as you.’

Pain tore through her. No, he didn’t love her, he loathed her. Just like she’d loathed Chase, only worse. So much worse.

‘Your partner in crime can put you up and make sure you get back to the hotel safe. I want nothing more to do with you.’

‘Blake, please…’ It was inaudible, her body lacking the strength for sound. It hurt to think, to breathe, to move?—

‘ Go , Astrid.’

She gave him one last pleading look, but his eyes were pinned straight ahead, his jaw set like steel. He wasn’t listening any more, he was shutting her out. Behaving like the man she’d met that very first day, playing offence and defence, fighting for his career. Bitter. Angry.

Only this time, she was the one who’d fired the shots, and she couldn’t hate herself more.

For an award-winning journalist, an expert in words, she was lost for them now. The one thing she wanted to say, she didn’t trust herself to admit. Nor did she trust him enough to hear it and not laugh in her face. So she stepped out into the cold, numb to everything but him.

‘I’m sorry.’

Her words were snatched away by the bitter wind, the slam of the truck door punctuating the finality of it all.

And hunching her shoulders against the cold inside and out, she did what he’d told her to do, she ran to Sissi, needing her friends now more than ever.

She felt his eyes on her the whole way though, because of course Blake wouldn’t leave until he knew she was safe.

He hated her but he was still protecting her.

And she deserved none of it.

Sissi launched across the diner as Astrid pushed through the doors, her arms wrapping around her as Astrid listened to the truck screeching away and then she crumbled, sinking into Sissi with a sob.

‘It’s okay, honey,’ Sissi murmured. ‘It’s okay…’

‘No, nothing’s okay,’ she cried. ‘I don’t think anything will be okay again.’

Because she knew in that moment Blake wasn’t alone.

She was broken. She had torn her own heart in two. And she had no idea how to piece it back together again. Not without the man to whom she had given it to…

And what kind of karma was that?

Gorging on her own Just Desserts, that’s what.

* * *

‘You’re going to have to tell him how you feel,’ Sissi said, topping up her wine glass.

They’d been talking for hours. Ever since Sissi’s shift had ended and they’d rolled home to her tiny two-up two-down, Astrid had been spilling her heart out. Her messed-up feelings for Blake. Her conflict over Aiden. The sex. All the sex. And the karma.

‘He’s never gonna let me anywhere near him.’

‘You’re one of the most resourceful women I know, you’ll find a way.’

‘I barely trust myself to feel it let alone tell him it.’

‘Just because you’ve never fallen in love before, it doesn’t mean you don’t know it when you feel it. I know it. And I see it in you.’

‘I really do love him, don’t I?’ Astrid buried her head in her hands. ‘How could I have been so stupid, so careless…’

‘Love has a will of its own.’

‘But Blake, of all people? He’s supposed to be like me; he doesn’t do relationships, he doesn’t fall in love…’

‘It’s probably why you were so drawn to him in the first place… he could never let you down like your father did your mother because he’d never lie to you about the future in the first place.’

Astrid lifted her head. ‘I can’t believe you remember all that stuff.’

‘Of course I remember, I’m your friend, one of your best. I listen. We all knew it was a risk with Blake; you like a bad boy because on the face of it, they’re nothing like your dad.’

It was true. Her father was so clean cut, so perfect on the outside, quick to make friends and influence people, quick to tell his mother what she wanted to hear and snatch it away when it suited him. ‘Christ, I’m a psychologist’s wet dream.’

Sienna chugged on her wine. ‘Welcome to the club.’

She squinted at her. ‘You too?’

‘Not the bad boys, but definitely the daddy issues. My father was so flaky after Mom died, he just stopped showing up, and then along came Aiden. So good, so kind, so dependable… until he wasn’t.’

Astrid opened her mouth to bat for him anew, but Sissi cut her off.

‘Don’t, Astrid. I know what you’re saying.

I hear it. But that man, he doesn’t know, he can’t know, because he never let me tell him.

’ She covered her stomach with her palm, the action as telling as the unshed tears in her eyes. ‘And I can’t forgive him for that.’

‘But he cared, Sissi, and I’m convinced he still does, and if I could tell you what happened that night to drive him away I would, but I swore I wouldn’t tell a soul.’

‘It wouldn’t make any difference.’

‘But Blake feels responsible, love. He believes he gave Aiden no choice but to flee, to choose his family over…’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. But if you could speak to him, if you could hear it from him, you would see?—’

She choked on her wine. ‘Absolutely not. It’s hard enough seeing him everywhere I go. But you, you have a chance to tell Blake how you feel. If I’d had the means to hunt Aiden down and make him listen to me about our baby, I’d have done it.’

Astrid didn’t doubt it and she reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘I know.’

‘Blake wouldn’t be this hurt if he didn’t care about you.’

‘You didn’t see his face, Sissi. He hates me.’

‘Love and hate, there’s a reason why they call it a fine line. Take it from someone who knows.’

‘He isn’t a bad boy either.’

‘If he was, you wouldn’t have fallen so hard for him. If he was, I’d be urging you to run the other way. But he’s not, honey, and he deserves to know how you truly feel. If he knows you’re not faking it, then maybe there’s a chance you can put all this behind you and look to the future.’

‘I think it’s too late for that.’

‘Shouldn’t you let him be the judge?’

Astrid blinked at her friend. Was she right? Could she lay her heart on the line? For the first time in her life, could she tell a man she loved them and risk having it thrown back in her face?

‘What if he rejects me all over again?’

‘Would it hurt any more than it does now?’

She shook her head. She couldn’t imagine anything hurting more than this.