Page 216 of Holding On To Good

Urban pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t—” With a sigh, he dropped his hand. Shook his head. No point denying those things again. “You’re going to school.”

“Uh… duh. But I can go to school in Pittsburgh. Commute.”

Miles narrowed his eyes at her. “Is this about Walsh?”

“Hardly,” she said with a sniff, but she blushed.

“Are you sure?” Miles asked at the same time Toby asked, “Who’s Walsh?” and Urban said, “Is that why you’ve been eating a carton of ice cream every night?”

Her blush intensified—but so did her glower. “This isn’t about me. Or Reed Walsh. This isn’t about anyone or anything other than Urban and the fact that he finally told Willow he was in love with her and she broke his heart and now he’ll never take another chance on love.”

He gaped at her. “Did you bug the house before you left?”“Ah ha!” she said, triumph flashing in her eyes as she pointed at him. “I knew it!”

Urban squeezed his eyes shut.

“What did you say, exactly?” Verity continued. “And what did she say?”

He sighed. His family would find out the truth soon enough. “Willow and I were seeing each other,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “It didn’t work out.”

And as neither of his brothers looked the slightest bit surprised by either statement, he figured he’d been right. They already knew, or at the very least, suspected something had been happening between him and Willow.

“What does that mean for you and Willow moving forward?” Miles asked.

Urban picked up a pen. Tapped it against the desk once. Twice. Three times. “We’re not.”

Miles’s eyebrows rose. “Not?”

“Not moving forward.” He tossed the pen down. “We’re dissolving J&K and going our separate ways.”

Miles cursed under his breath. Toby shook his head at Urban. “You’re not serious.”

Urban shrugged.

It didn’t matter if his family believed him or not. The truth was, he and Willow in any and all forms, were done.

Or they would be. Once he actually started the process of splitting up the company. Every time he’d picked up his phone this past week to call Jackson, he’d put it right back down again.

Verity stared at him, wide-eyed and horrified. “This is all my fault,” she whispered.

Then she burst into tears.

Toby shot Urban a scowl as he wrapped an arm around Verity and gave her a side hug.

“What’s your fault?” Miles asked her.

“This” —she gestured wildly and Toby stepped back so he didn’t take an elbow in the stomach— “you” —she pointed at Urban, then tossed her hands in the air with such velocity, both Miles and Urban stepped back as well. “Everything.”

“I think we all can say, with absolute certainty, that whatever happened between Urban and Willow was entirely Urban’s fault,” Miles said. “Not yours.”

She rolled her eyes. Wiped at her tears, smudging her mascara. “I know that.”

Urban’s left eye twitched. There was nothing like being surrounded by your loved ones to give you a little sympathy and understanding when your heart had been smashed into a million pieces.

“But it’s my fault he’s in this situation in the first place,” she added. “He wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me! He’d be off making millions of dollars playing baseball.”“There’s no guarantee he would’ve made it to the Major League,” Miles pointed out.

Urban’s eye twitched faster.

“Even if he hadn’t,” Verity said. “Even if he’d crashed and burned and was forced to come back to Mount Laurel with his tail tucked between his legs—”

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