Chapter 43
COLE
I’d been staring at the email for more than twenty minutes.
I told myself I left before Jules’ woke because I needed time. That was the lie I could live with.
The truth was harder. I left because I saw the version of myself she was beginning to believe in.
And I didn’t trust myself to be him.
If I had stayed, if I had said goodbye properly, it would have meant acknowledging that what we were circling was real.
I’d spent my entire life choosing the thing that couldn’t be taken from me.
The work. The title. The path that didn’t require anyone else to stake their future on my follow-through.
I left because caring meant risking becoming the man who promises and then disappears. I’d seen what that did. I’d grown up with the wreckage of it.
Walking away felt cleaner than staying and failing her later.
But this was it. Officially in writing. The ten-year offer I was supposed to accept. One I’d coveted for years. So why did it feel like a death sentence?
Because it is.
Accepting tenure at Columbia and then later reneging would significantly damage my reputation in academic circles.
And yet…
Accepting it also felt like I was trapping myself in a life built by my father. It hadn’t happened overnight. It was just a college, my interest in history as prominent as any other of my interests. I had no other ideas on what my future career might look like, so why not?
Then graduation, and acknowledging that I didn’t want to teach as much as I wanted to research, which meant continuing on to a master’s and then a PhD.
There it was assumed I would only apply to the top schools in the country. And I did, getting into more than one of them.
I felt accomplished. Mom was happy. But there had been a niggling in the back of my brain for many years—longer than I cared to admit.
The guys knew it. My sister knew it. It was only me and my parents who had been strong all along, even though it felt like a detour instead of a main path.
A knock on the door was followed by Mason coming into the room, double-fisting a beer in one hand and a whiskey in the other.
“Have a second?”
“Do you make it a habit of walking into your guest room unannounced?”
He handed me the whiskey. “Only yours.”
He looked down at my laptop. “Working? This is why you skipped Taco Tuesday?”
It was a running tradition the guys continued, now with better halves, to this day.
“I was coming down. As soon as I finish some things.”
Mason hovered over me. “No Juliette today?”
I thought back to her text. It had taken more than two hours for me to come up with a response. But I finally texted her back:
Cole
Thinking of you too. Hope you’re having a good day!
She’d loved the message but, not surprisingly, she didn’t respond.
I got in a run, grabbed some lunch, and had been working ever since until this email came through.
“No. I’ve been catching up on some things.”
I was certain he wouldn’t let it drop.
Mason frowned, but didn’t say a word. Instead, he handed me a piece of paper.
“What am I looking at?”
“Vendor agreement for the pop-up tastings. Pia flagged it but couldn’t articulate why it felt off. I don’t think she fully trusts our lawyer’s capabilities.”
I scanned the first paragraph, then paused. Reached into my pocket, I pulled out my glasses and slid them on.
Mason’s mouth twitched. “Haven’t seen those in a while.”
“Give me a second.”
I scrolled, slower now. Precise. Focused.
“Okay,” I said finally. “There it is.”
Mason leaned in. “Where?”
“Section six. Indemnification.” I tapped the screen. “You’ve got a mutual hold-harmless clause, but it’s overridden three paragraphs later by a limitation carve-out that only applies to the vendor.”
Mason blinked. “In English.”
“They’re protected. You’re not.” I scrolled again. “If someone trips, gets sick, files a claim—guess who eats it?”
Mason swore under his breath. “So what do I do?”
“You either strike the carve-out entirely or mirror it.” I handed the tablet back. “Same cap. Same language. Otherwise you’re assuming all liability while thinking you’re covered.”
Mason stared at the screen. “That’s… subtle.”
“That’s intentional.” I reached for my laptop. “Also, this jurisdiction clause? You don’t want arbitration out of state. You’ll bleed money before you ever get to court.”
Mason watched me type, fast and sure. “You’re frightening when you do this.”
I didn’t look up. “You asked.”
A beat passed.
“Okay,” Mason said. “That fixes it?”
“It fixes this.” I finally glanced up. “But don’t sign anything until they accept the revision in writing. No verbal assurances. Ever.”
Mason exhaled. “Jesus. I owe you.”
I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “Just send it back before midnight. If they push, they know they’re exposed. Oh, and trust Pia’s instincts. Get a new lawyer.”
“Fuck.” He strode toward the sliding glass doors, opened the screen, and headed out onto the balcony.
Apparently he was making himself at home, so I got up from the bed with my whiskey and joined him.
“This was the room Mom and Dad shared, when she was alive.”
I knew that already, but stayed silent. Mason rarely talked about his father, but when he did… I listened.
“He would have adored P, and the baby.”
We looked out onto the lake. In our quiet cove, not much was happening. But on the main lake, there would still be plenty of boats this time of day.
A great view—though not quite Monterosso.
And of course, I couldn’t think of Italy without thinking of her.
“He would have been in his glory. I’ve told you more than once, but your dad would be so proud of what you’ve done with Heritage Hill in the last year.”
Mason coughed. “It’s mostly Pia.”
Mason hated compliments. “At least you had the good sense to keep her on. And then marry her.”
His lips twitched with a smile, threatening his contemplation. “I didn’t even have that. Literally kicked her to the curb the day she arrived.” He looked at me. “Can you imagine?”
“Honestly? No, I can’t. But you were in a state at the time, if I remember.”
His father had just passed. Mason only learned of the extent of Heritage Hill’s decline when the new manager showed up on his doorstep. New manager—and future wife.
“A bachelor pact.” I took a sip of whiskey. “Honestly, as each of you fell like dominoes, I was initially kind of pissed. I think there was a part of me that really thought we would stick to it.”
“There was never a chance. But I think”—he looked at me, dead in the eyes—“it was more of a promise that we remain family than it ever was a pact not to get married.”
Shit. Mason made me tear up. I was going to fucking kill him.
“And that’s already a done deal, so…”
Thankfully, he stopped talking. These kinds of discussions were never easy for me.
A little voice in my head scolded me at that, so I knew what I was doing when my mouth opened to respond. “And it means the world to me. I belong here more than I ever belonged in my own family.”
Mason didn’t react. He didn’t move or look at me. Instead, he lifted his beer, we clinked glasses, and no words were needed.
“You said you were staying until Thursday. What’s with the packed bag?”
Of course he would notice. Nothing escaped Mason’s notice.
“I’m heading back tomorrow morning. I have some things to take care of.”
“Such as? Oh shit, look at that.”
It was a rowboat across the cove drifting toward the shore with nobody in it. We watched as two heads emerged in the lake, looking for their boat, which obviously wasn’t anchored very well.
Mason’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. He took it out and looked at the text.
“Tacos are ready. If you’re coming down?”
I wanted to ask if Jules was there. She wasn’t part of the core group, but Delaney often brought her around, so there was a chance…
The bigger question was, did I want her to be there?
I looked back into the bedroom, at the bed, at my laptop. I couldn’t chance it.
“Save me one. I’m gonna get some things done and wander down in a bit.”
And by “a bit,” that meant later on tonight, when my stomach finally forced my legs down to the kitchen—away from the email, away from the lake, and away from the truth I wasn’t ready to answer.