What would it be like to let this be real?

I sit on the edge of Nate’s bed and bury my nose in his T-shirt. His scent relaxes me so much that I find myself lying down. Just for a minute. Just a little rest before I go to my own bed.

“Angel?”

The whisper pulls me from a dream. Then there’s a hand on my face, someone stroking my cheek. My eyes are heavy, but I force them open. I see Nate before I close them again.

“What are you doing in my room?” I mumble.

“You’re exhausted,” he whispers. “Close your eyes.”

I obey because it’s too hard to wake up and sleep feels so good. As I drift off to sleep, I feel arms wrap around me, warm breath against my neck.

I WAKE to the feel of Hanna’s soft curves in my arms, her firm, round belly under my hand.

She slides her hand into my boxers and traces the length of my cock, strokes the tip with her thumb. “I want to touch you,” she murmurs. Then she cups my balls, causing me to draw in a breath with a hiss. “I want to put my mouth on you.”

My sweet girl and her dirty mouth. I’m a goner.

She takes my hands and positions them above my head, wrapping my fingers around the slats of the headboard. I don’t object. I would do anything to keep her in this bed with me, and if that means keeping my hands off her a little longer while she straddles my hips—well, I might die from wanting to touch her, but it wouldn’t be the worst way to go. The tie on her robe has come loose, and from this angle, I can see the creamy skin of her br**sts. She doesn’t stay there long. Stealing my view, she scoots down my body and shucks off my boxers.

“Hanna,” I growl. I miss the view and the heat of her against my cock. I release the headboard with one hand and reach for her.

She looks up at me from between my legs, her cheeks flushed, her hair wild around her face. “Behave,” she clucks, nodding to the headboard.

“You’re wicked.” Then I decide I’ve never been any good at following her rules. Grabbing her, I pull her up my body and roll until I’m on top of her.

She grins. “I might be wicked, but you’re naughty.”

“Damn straight.” I kiss her as my hands work to untie the knot on her robe. I kiss my way south until I’ve found her br**sts. When I suck one pebbled nipple into my mouth, she moans.

“Maybe this isn’t so bad,” she murmurs. “Sometimes.”

Lifting my head, I take her face in my hands and shake my head. “No,” I growl, and her smile falls away. “I want more than sometimes and I want more than to be friends and parents together. I want you. Completely and always.”

“What if we can’t figure it out?” she whispers.

“We will,” I promise, sliding my hand between her legs. She opens her thighs and lifts her hips off the bed. “We will.”

Three Days Before Hanna’s Accident

I WAIT until Max leaves for work before I let myself into his apartment and lock the door behind me.

I head straight to his bedroom and the desk in the corner. Max is neat, and there are only a couple of stacks of papers on the desk—a meal and exercise plan for a client and some information about a new piece of equipment he has in the club.

I turn to the filing cabinet and start thumbing through files, not sure what I’m looking for. He wouldn’t exactly label it “Secret File About Hanna’s Bakery.” But I find a file labeled Smith, Peterson, and Frank and pull it.

There’s a copy of the agreement I signed when I agreed to start the bakery with the anonymous investor and some other paperwork from the lawyer, but instead of a deed to the bakery, I find papers from New Hope Bank and Trust.

My stomach twists painfully. It’s bad enough to know that he sold his grandmother’s house to get me the bakery, but knowing that he had to take out additional loans makes me sick to my stomach. No wonder he’s been letting employees go in favor of putting in long hours at the gym himself. He’s busy paying on the loan he took out for me.

For some reason, my gaze catches on a letter stacked neatly on the corner of the desk. It’s addressed to Max, but the name of a local investor jumps out at me. I unfold it carefully, and my stomach sinks.

This letter contains the details of the offer we discussed over lunch. I think this deal could be beneficial for us both, and I look forward to speaking with you further.

“No,” I whisper. He can’t sell his club. He can’t sacrifice his dream for mine.

My phone buzzes, and I pull it from my pocket to see a text from Nate.

Nate: Heading to London. I miss you already. Been thinking a lot about our conversation. Call me?

I bring my hand to my mouth to stop the sob that threatens to escape. When I was a little girl, I imagined that one day I’d fall in love with an amazing man and he’d love me in return. I believed love was enough to overcome anything. But love isn’t like that. The heart has the capacity to love beyond anything my little-girl self could have dreamed up. And where I once thought love was a journey and the destination was being together, I now know that love is more like a state of awareness, and sometimes its best expression is in releasing the person from your life.

I read the text a second and third time and then delete it before I can torture myself with another read. The text disappears, but the history of our texts stays on the screen.

In one hand, my texts from Nate. In my other, the evidence of what Max has sacrificed for me to have my dream.