Page 74 of So Close

She’d been wrong about Patrick and she was wrong about him, and both times she hadn’t been able to see the truth until it was too late.

He saw exactly what he needed to do.

But he didn’t say any of it aloud, because he knew she’d fight him. She always fought him—it was one of the things he loved most about her.

Instead he said, “He’s at Brynn’s right now. We’ll talk to him when he gets back.”

He’d thought he’d already done the worst thing. He thought he’d ruined everything that was left to ruin. But when she smiled at him and said, “Sounds good,” he knew there was one thing left to destroy, and he’d just signed its death warrant.

37

She went into Beachcrest’s tiny office to put things in order. Trey had said that the closing would have to be within the next thirty days, which meant that she’d have to cancel all the reservations from August 1 on. The thought made her stomach hurt, badly—and tears filled her eyes—especially when she thought about the Gardners, who always came in September and had for more than ten years, to celebrate their wedding anniversary. And the Hoopers in October, and Carson and Sage and their families at Christmas … and on and on. But this was how it was; they had done their best, and it hurt, but it was life.

She was still sitting in there, an hour and a half later, when she heard Trey’s voice, just a murmur on the other side of her closed door. Talking to Luz.

She came out of the office. “Hey!” she said. She was determined to be upbeat; what was happening was awful; it was impossible to think about without misery, but she wouldn’t wallow and she wouldn’t guilt-trip Trey.

Luz looked from her to Trey, then bit her lip. “I’m going to go check on the kitchen inventory,” she said, slipping between them and out to the back of the inn. “Auburn can help you with whatever you need help with.”

She and Trey were alone at the front desk, facing each other, once again, over its width.

The grave expression on his face made anxiety skitter across the floor of her stomach. But she took a deep breath. She’d known getting past this would be weird and hard, but they were good. They had to be good. What had passed between them during the last few days had to mean something to him, as it did to her; sheknewit. You couldn’t just walk away from that kind of chemistry.

“Is Carl back?”

“He’s still at Brynn’s, but—it’s good. I took care of it. I explained it all to him. He was angry I hadn’t told him any of it before. He’s just plain angry. He called me a lot of things I probably deserved—”

It took her brain a minute to catch up to him. “You talked to Carl. Without me… That wasn’t the deal we made earlier, Trey.”

“I know. But I didn’t want to put you through that. It’s not your mess to clean up.”

“You said we’d talk to him when he came back from Brynn’s! And then, what, as soon as I wasn’t looking, you drove over there? Which means, you lied to me, doesn’t it?”

The expression on his face answered the question.

“Because I knew you’d try to tell him this wasn’t my fault—”

“Well, yeah! I would tell him how I saw things. That’s why I wanted to talk to him with you, so we could make him see the big picture—” Then she caught her breath, realizing she was missing the more important point. “What happened isn’t your fault, Trey.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it fucking is. There’s no version of the universe in which it’s not my fault. I made the decisions that put Home Base where it was. I made the choices that brought me here. And then I put you in an impossible position and forced you to make an untenable decision. And—” He took a deep breath; she heard it catch somewhere in his chest. “I need to own that, Auburn.”

“People make bad business decisions, Trey. They make mistakes. They don’t think things all the way through. And sometimes there are unintended consequences. I don’t blame you for any of that.”

“You should,” he said. “I blame myself. I can’t forgive myself for letting this happen.”

She was starting to get a very bad feeling about this. “So—so what does that mean?”

He took a deep breath and looked away, his gaze roaming the corners of the room before landing back on her face. “I’m going back to San Francisco.”

“For how long?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, as soon as his expression shifted, a curtain falling behind his eyes, she knew. But he said it anyway. “For good.”

“When you say ‘for good,’ what exactly do you mean?”

She was surprised—and pleased—to hear her voice sound almost normal. Like she was just asking a casual question. Not one that was forced up from her soul, even though that was what it felt like.

He shook his head. “I don’t think we should see each other again.”

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