Page 94 of Trusting Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 2)

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“What do you think?”Audrey asked as they walked through the two story bungalow with a view of the river.

“It’s nice.” Grace gave the same answer that she’d given her sister about the last five houses they’d toured together.

“You still can’t stop thinking about that Pine View house, huh?”

No, she couldn’t. Just like Easton she couldn’t get the Pine View house out of her mind.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s sold.” Grace had checked with Lauren again, just to make sure that the escrow hadn’t fallen through.

“So how are things going with Easton?”

Grace had to give her sister credit. They’d been house hunting for almost four hours and this was the first time she’d brought up Easton. If it was Viv, it would have been the first topic that was discussed.

“I don’t know. Things have been…different.”

“Different how?” Audrey asked as they walked into the master suite.

Grace sighed. They’d won the reality competition a week ago today and the first forty-eight hours had been a whirlwind. They’d done press, radio, and talk shows. But it was the final show that they’d done, Good Morning Sacramento, where everything changed.

The host Marty Spears had asked the question. Honestly, now that Grace thought about it, she was surprised that it took over a dozen interviews for “the question” to come up. But it finally had. Did they see wedding bells in the future?

Grace had looked to Easton, who stared back at her. From the very first confessional interview they’d done, they’d developed unspoken signals between them. Well, one signal, when she didn’t want to answer a question all she had to do was smile up at Easton and he took it.

But not this time. This time she looked up at him and he didn’t say a word.

And in that moment her heart broke because his one condition for doing the reality show was that he wouldn’t lie. Which meant if he’d answered the question saying yes, or even maybe, it would be a lie.

She knew she only had herself to blame. She’d been so hot and cold, he was probably just ready to turn the spout off completely. The final show when she’d seen how upset he was when she was sick, had really affected her. She’d never seen Easton get flustered and seeing him so stressed, checking his phone every few minutes, dropping his phone, she couldn’t believe that she’d made him feel that way.

It affected her. Logically, she knew that it was sweet. If she hadn’t, the oohs and awws of the audience would have clued her in. She didn’t know why, but for some reason, seeing how worried he was made her go back under her protective shell.

She hadn’t been rude to Easton, or said anything unkind, but she could see in his eyes that he noticed. Which, obviously he would, he noticed everything about her. But to his credit, he didn’t treat her any different. He acted as if nothing had changed.

After three days of press she was finally feeling safe around him again and had just started peeking her head out of her shell, when fucking Marty Spears had to go and ask that fucking question. Then her head went right back inside her shell.

They had one more event to do together. They were going to be the Grand Marshalls at the Hope Falls Christmas Parade in two days. After that, she planned on ending things with him. Not that they’d even had a real relationship to begin with. Unfortunately, her heart hadn’t received that memo and it had been shattered into a million pieces on national television when the man she loved said, by omission, that he didn’t see a future with her. Well, actually it was regional television. But the segment had gone up on YouTube and that could be seen around the world.

She had been trying to look at the positive side of things. And in her estimation, there were two silver linings in this situation. One, she’d watched the segment at least a hundred times and there was only a split second where the heartbreak was evident in her eyes. If you blinked, you missed it. She’d recovered in record time and made a joke about just wanting to get through the holidays. And two, at least she knew now, for certain, that he had no plans of marrying her. It's not like he’d ever told her any different. The first night they’d met he’d told her that he’d never thought of himself as marrying and settling down.

In fairness to her, it’s not like she planned on falling in love with Easton Bishop. She never could have predicted that she would want to marry the man and have his babies. But she dealt in facts and those were the facts.

So, now her plan was to rip the Band-Aid off before she fell any further in love with Easton Bishop. There was no reason to drag out the inevitable. Not when her heart wanted more than his.

“Grace…different how?” Audrey repeated the question.

“I just don’t think it’s going to work out between us,” Grace answered the question without revealing the reason.

Audrey’s face scrunched in confusion. “Why not?”

“Because…” Grace didn’t want to tell her sister the reason because she knew how it would sound. Easton and Grace had known each other less than two months. Ending it now because he didn’t want to get married was straitjacket level insanity. “We want different things.”

“You do?” Audrey followed up.

“Yes.” Grace hoped that her sister would drop it. She didn’t want to defend her position. She just wanted to move on with her life and start to put Easton behind her.

Which would be difficult enough in a town the size of Hope Falls. She’d thought about going back to LA. but she knew that would only make her more miserable. She wanted to be with her family, her sisters. And she did love this town and the people in it.

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