Chapter 21 Hack Attack
HACK ATTACK
SAGE
It’s hard not to float through Callum Abernathy’s engagement party like a woman who just had semi-public sex with a tech billionaire against a stone balustrade—while overlooking a mountain lake and an open bar.
Everything about the night glows.
The Fairmont Olympic looks like it was dipped in champagne and then gift-wrapped by the ghost of Gatsby. Marble floors polished to a mirror shine, towering floral installations that smell like wealth, and enough gold trim to make Versailles feel insecure.
Crystal chandeliers flicker over a canopy of champagne-colored silk. String quartets play tasteful renditions of pop songs. And the flower arrangements? So aggressively luxurious they could bankrupt a small country.
There’s literal golden light spilling from antique lanterns lining the veranda. A harpist is playing in the middle of the damn hors d'oeuvre station. The ice sculpture in the foyer is of Callum and Karina in formalwear, waltzing.
It’s obscene. It’s over-the-top.
It’s beautiful.
And I can’t stop smiling.
Because somewhere between Luke’s mouth on mine, his hands under my dress, and the feel of him whispering filth against my neck while Seattle glittered behind us like a dream—I forgot every worry I’ve ever had.
He’s across the room now, talking to a cluster of men in suits that cost more than my entire inn renovation. But even from a distance, he keeps glancing my way.
And the look he gives me makes me want to drag him back to that terrace.
Or a coat closet.
Or honestly, the nearest horizontal surface.
“Someone’s glowing,” Mac says, appearing at my elbow with two champagne flutes and a knowing smirk.
“Just enjoying the party,” I say, pretending my lipstick isn’t actively betraying me.
“Right.” She hands me a flute. “So… the terrace was a productive venue, I take it?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“Uh-huh. Your lipstick's smudged, your hair’s doing this post-thrust halo thing, and you look like a woman who’s just been thoroughly compromised by a man who probably owns a compound in the Alps.
” She winks. “I’ve been there. Alex and I once scandalized an entire wedding reception in a greenhouse.
I don’t know what it is about formal wear and inappropriate locations, but it’s… it’s…”
“Hot?” I ask, grinning, and she grins back.
“Immensely.”
Nodding, I turn to reapply my lipstick, catching my reflection in the beveled mirror behind the bar.
I don’t even look like myself.
I look… euphoric. Reckless. Light.
Until Luke appears beside me.
And everything… swims—shifts. Blurs.
Because something’s wrong.
The heat from earlier has cooled. His expression is off—tight around the eyes. Not cold, exactly. Just… fragile.
Haunted.
“Ready to go?” he asks, and his voice is soft in a way that instantly makes my stomach bottom out.
“Already?” I glance at the ornate grandfather clock in the corner. “Connor hasn’t even cued the embarrassing slideshow.”
“I need to…” He swallows. “Can we go? Please?”
It’s the ‘please’ that slices through me.
Luke Sterling doesn’t say please like that—gentle and wrecked. Like the word itself is cracking under the weight of whatever he's carrying.
“Of course,” I say, setting my untouched champagne on the tray of a passing server.
Mac gives me a raised-brow look that says What the hell? but I can’t answer.
Not when Luke’s hand is on my back again, guiding me gently toward the exit. The same hand that gripped my waist against the terrace wall now feels… unsure.
Hesitant.
The valet is waiting with his personal car—a sleek electric Porsche that hums like confidence on wheels. He opens my door for me like a gentleman, but the look in his eyes is anything but romantic.
"Luke, you're scaring me. What's wrong?"
"Just... get in. Please."
The drive starts in silence.
I can see my date tonight gripping the steering wheel, his jaw working like he's having an argument with himself. And the drive that should feel like a continuation of magic instead feels like a countdown.
“Did something happen?” I ask. “With work? With Nana Sterling?”
His voice cracks on my name. “Sage.” He exhales like it hurts to speak. “I know about the inn. About the foreclosure. Two weeks from now.”
Everything inside me stills.
“I—” I can’t even form words.
“I also know about the profile,” he says softly. “My profile. The fifteen forced matches.”
Silence detonates in the car.
The only thing I can hear is my heart trying to crawl its way up my throat.
“You hacked it,” he says, his voice like frost over cracked glass. “You hacked me.”
“No—yes—I mean, it’s not what you think—”
He pulls the car over without warning, tires crunching against the gravel shoulder of a scenic overlook. Below us, Seattle stretches out like a promise we’ll never get to keep.
He turns to me. His eyes—those brilliant, arctic-blue, cutting eyes—are raw.
“Was any of it real?” he asks. “Tonight? The terrace? Any of this?”
“All of it,” I whisper. “Luke, all of it was real.”
“But it started with a lie.”
“Yes.” My throat burns. “I was desperate. I made a terrible choice.”
“You studied me,” he says. “Reverse-engineered your entire personality to match mine.”
“At first. Yes.” I reach for him, but he pulls just slightly away, enough to hurt. “But then I met you. And you weren’t some typical arrogant billionaire. You were kind. And brilliant. And broken in the most human ways.”
He stares at me like he wants to believe that. Like some part of him already does. But he’s afraid.
“I told you about Veronica,” he says. “I told you what she did. What Kevin did. And still… you kept this from me.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“I gave you everything, Sage. I was falling for you.” His voice is hollow now. “I let you see the part of me I don’t show anyone. And you—you let me fall for something that wasn’t real.”
“It was real,” I cry. “Maybe not at first. But somewhere between goat yoga and you fixing my porch light and us dancing in the kitchen, it became real.”
He looks away. “I don’t know how to do this again. I don’t know how to rebuild trust from nothing.”
“Then don’t,” I plead. “We don’t have to rebuild it all tonight. We can start small. We can start here.”
“I can’t,” he says, so softly it shatters me. “Not when I don’t know which version of you I’m loving.”
My hand falls to my lap, useless.
“Luke…”
We sit in silence for what feels like hours but is probably only minutes. He starts the car again. The ride back to the inn is silent but suffocating.
When he parks, I reach for the handle, but pause.
"Luke," I try again. “Please don’t do this. Don’t walk away from us.”
He stares straight ahead.
“I won’t pull the SafeStay partnership,” he says. “You deserve that. The inn deserves that. But I can’t give you the rest of me. Not now.”
Tears spill down my cheeks, and I don’t bother wiping them away.
“Was,” I echo brokenly. “You said you were falling for me.”
“I still am,” he whispers. “That’s the problem.”
I open the door and get out on shaking legs.
He waits until I’m on the porch before driving away.
No tires squealing. No angry shouts. Just… silence.
And I stand there in the wind, the hem of my party dress soaked by the grass, while the November sky opens up like it’s mourning too.
Inside, Buttercup bleats behind the door.
“He’s gone,” I tell her, my voice catching. “And it’s my fault.”
She pushes the door open with her head and steps out into the rain beside me.
She doesn’t chew my shoe.
She just stands there with me—two figures in the storm—watching the night swallow the man I might have loved.
And probably still do.