23. The Breaking Point #2
"After careful consideration, I've decided to return to professional competition for one final fight."
I stopped in the corridor.
Silence followed, then the rustle of paper.
He started again.
"After careful consideration?—"
I pushed the door open.
Luca turned from the window, phone in one hand and the printed statement in the other. Donny was gone. The laptop remained open on the table beneath the headline that made my stomach twist.
"How long have you been standing there?" he asked.
"Long enough."
His expression closed. "Riley."
"No." I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. "You don't get to say my name like I'm interrupting something reasonable."
His grip tightened on the paper. "I'm trying to save the resort."
"You're rehearsing how to break your daughter's trust in language that photographs well."
The words carried more bite than I meant, but they were still true.
Luca's nostrils flared. "That is not what this is."
"It is exactly what this is. Different suit. Different excuse. Same cycle."
"You don't understand the position I'm in."
"I understand Ava checks the window when you're five minutes late. I understand she made house rules because she needed promises she could see. I understand you finally sleep through the night without waking up ready to fight someone."
His gaze flicked away.
I moved closer. "And I understand that Victor knows how to make guilt sound like duty."
"This isn't guilt." His voice rose. "It's legacy. It's my family's name on that building. It's hundreds of people whose paychecks depend on me not walking away because things got uncomfortable."
"Uncomfortable?"
"The contractors. The vendors. The staff. You think I can stand there tomorrow and tell them I chose my peace over their jobs?"
"You are not the one canceling the relaunch. Victor is."
"And that distinction won't feed anyone."
The anger in his face was real, but fear lived underneath it. I reached for him anyway.
"Then let us help you find another way."
He stepped back before my fingers touched his arm.
"You keep saying 'us' like love makes the numbers disappear."
The words left a hard silence behind them.
I stared at him. "That's what you think I'm doing?"
"I think you get to focus on what Ava needs tonight. I have to think about what happens to everyone tomorrow."
For a moment, I could not breathe. Then I nodded, because crying in front of him would have felt like begging him to understand.
"You're right," I said softly. "I only see the people you promised not to leave."
His face changed, but too late.
I opened the door and walked out before he could turn another apology into an excuse.
The resort did not care that Luca had split something open in me. The bride still needed her wedding, the kitchen still needed an answer, and every radio in the building seemed personally offended by the idea of silence.
So I stayed in planner mode.
I could fall apart later, somewhere private, after every guest believed the day had unfolded exactly as promised. Until then, I steadied the vendors, approved the final changes, and hid the disaster so well no one upstairs would ever know it had existed.
By the time I grabbed my bag and keys, my eyes burned from holding everything in.
Ava was waiting near the camp entrance with her shark headphones around her neck and the dolphin-sticker "House Rules" poster tucked beneath one arm.
She climbed into the Corolla and handed me the poster while I helped her with the seat belt.
My phone buzzed in the cup holder.
"Maddie," I said when my sister's name appeared on the screen.
Ava's attention shifted immediately. "Your sister?"
"The one and only."
I answered the video call and angled the phone toward the back seat. Maddie's face filled the screen, framed by the clutter of her dorm room.
"Well, hello," she said.
Ava leaned forward as far as the seat belt allowed, studying her with the same serious concentration she gave restaurant menus and unfamiliar dogs.
Maddie brightened. "You must be Ava."
Ava glanced at me. "She knows my name."
"I may have mentioned you once or twelve times."
"Fourteen," Maddie corrected.
Ava considered that. "Do you like dolphins?"
"I have no strong anti-dolphin position."
That earned the smallest curve of Ava's mouth.
For the next five minutes, Maddie answered questions about her favorite ocean animal, whether she snored, and if she knew how to make pancakes shaped like sharks. By the end, Ava had apparently reached a decision.
"You should come here."
Maddie laughed. "I'd like that."
"When?"
The question was directed at Maddie, but her eyes moved to me.
"Soon," I said carefully.
Ava nodded as if a verbal agreement had just become legally binding. "Bring pajamas."
After the video call ended, Ava traced the edge of the poster with one finger while traffic crawled toward the resort.
"I fixed the rules," she said at last.
"You did?"
She turned it so I could see.
No yelling.
No leaving without saying goodbye.
Pancakes count as dinner sometimes.
Grown-ups keep promises.
Bright blue dolphins leaped around the words.
"This is very official," I said, though my throat tightened.
She studied my face. "Are you sad?"
"I'm having a hard day."
Ava peeled a dolphin from the sticker sheet and pressed it onto the back of my hand. "This one can help with the hard part."
A laugh escaped me with the tear I could not stop.
She watched the buildings pass. "Is Dad at the resort?"
"Yes."
"I want to see him."
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Ava?—"
"I want to show him the rules," she said, suddenly brightening, already excited, like this was something good, something important she had made just for him.
There was no accusation in her voice. That made it worse.
When we reached the resort, she practically bounced through the lobby, holding the poster out in front of her with both hands like a presentation. We found him in the conference room, staring at the statement on his laptop.
Ava rushed to him first, lifting the poster up like a prize. "Daddy, look! I made new rules for us!"