But it seems she’d be one hell of a poker player.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” she says, turning away from me and walking back out to the foyer to grab her purse.

“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”

She whirls around to face me. “Didn’t you just hear me say all the reasons it would be bad? Money, family, business,” she ticks off on her fingers. “All gone.”

The first two I couldn’t care less about right now. But her business? The thing she loves more than anything else? No, I can’t ask her to give that up.

And she’s right. If Dad found out she had something to do with this broken engagement, there’d be repercussions. I’ve watched him ruthlessly tear his competitors apart. There’s no reason he wouldn’t do the same to her, especially if he perceived it as personal.

“I have to go home and change,” she says, her tone nearly normal again, glancing down at her wrinkled dress. “You have an appointment at your tailor at eleven to make sure your tux fits right.”

I nod, watching her transform into wedding planner Mackenzie. The woman who has it all put together and planned out. Who doesn’t need me. It kills me, but what can I do? She’s made up her mind.

She glances back once as she opens the door, her eyes holding an apologetic resoluteness before she closes it.

And closes me out of her life.