Chapter 20
The Truth She Deserves
Grayson
I’m still outside when Kate walks back into the cabin.
The door closes. Not a slam—something worse. Controlled.
I set down the axe and look at the pile of split wood.
Andrew Chen found me.
After four years of hiding. Of building a life where no one asks questions. My past has finally arrived in Maple Glen, and it cornered Kate first.
I replay her words.
I lied for you. I protected you without even knowing why.
She deserves the truth.
All of it. Even the parts I’ve been hoarding.
Even if it costs me everything.
I stand there for a long time, working up the nerve to go inside.
—
I find her in her room an hour later, sitting on the bed with her laptop open.
She’s researching. I can see it in the speed of her fingers, the furrow between her brows. Looking up Andrew Chen. Evervolt. Trying to assemble the puzzle I should have handed her weeks ago.
I knock softly on the doorframe.
She looks up. Guarded. But she doesn’t look away.
"Can we talk?" I ask.
"Now you want to talk."
"I know. I don’t deserve the chance. But please."
She studies me. Then closes the laptop and stands.
"Fine. But I want everything, Grayson. All of it."
"Come outside."
She follows me downstairs and out to the porch steps—the same place we sat watching the sunrise, when everything felt simple.
Before Andrew Chen. Before the past came calling.
I take a breath and start.
This is it.
If I tell her, nothing stays the same. She either looks at me the way she always has… or she starts seeing titles. Money. Power.
And I lose the version of us that felt real.
“I’m not just some hermit hiding from the world.”
Kate waits.
"I’m a co-founder of Evervolt Technologies. Along with Maxwell and a woman named Victoria Reeves. We started the company eight years ago with one goal—make solar energy accessible. Affordable. Change the industry from the inside."
She doesn’t react. Just listens.
"For the first few years, it worked. We grew fast. Went from a startup to a company with hundreds of employees. We brought on investors, expanded into new markets."
I pause.
"Then growth came with pressure. The board started pushing for profit over purpose. Cut corners. Raise prices. Prioritize shareholders over the people we were supposed to be serving."
"And?" Her voice is soft.
"I fought back. Insisted we stay true to what we’d built it for."
I stop. The next part is harder.
"Victoria sided with them." I keep my voice flat. "My partner. My friend. She went behind my back, convinced the board I was holding the company back. Made me look like an idealist who couldn’t handle the realities of running a real business."
Kate’s hand finds mine. I didn’t realize how much I needed that until she did it.
"They orchestrated a vote. Tried to strip my decision-making power. Keep the ‘visionary founder’ title but remove any real authority." I shake my head. "I refused. Walked away instead."
"When?"
"Four years ago. I came here to clear my head. Figure out what I wanted." I look out at the tree line. "And I just... stayed."
Silence. She’s processing.
"Maxwell has been trying to bring me back ever since," I continue. "He thinks I can fix what’s broken. Restore the original vision."
"And you don’t think you can?"
"I don’t want to go back. Not because I can’t." I look at her. "Because the person I was there—fighting every day, watching for the next betrayal, performing some version of myself that felt less real each year—I don’t want to be him again."
She tightens her grip on my hand.
"So when Andrew Chen showed up..." she says slowly.
"He’s one of the board members who voted against me. He’s here to bring me back. Or to pressure me. Probably both."
"And Maxwell knew all of this."
Not a question. I nod anyway.
Kate pulls her hand away. Stands. Starts pacing the porch.
"So Maxwell sent me here on purpose." Her voice is tight and controlled—which is worse than if she’d shouted. "The exile, the cabin, the espresso machine punishment—it was all arranged."
"Kate—"
"I’m what? Bait? A pawn in a corporate chess game?"
"No." I stand, keeping my voice level. "You were never part of the plan. Maxwell didn’t expect this."
I gesture between us. She stops. Stares at me.
"Expect what?"
I hold her gaze.
"Us."
The word sits in the air between us.
"Maxwell sent you here because you needed space after the office incident. Yes—he probably hoped that if we crossed paths, I might remember why the company mattered."
"Did it work?"
"No." I step closer. "I remembered why people matter. Why honesty matters." A beat. "Ironic, I know."
Her eyes shine.
"You should have told me," she says. "From the beginning."
"I know."
"Do you? Because I’ve been falling for someone I don’t even really know. Someone withholding the truth every single day."
I have no answer to that. The silence says it for me.
"I was scared," I say finally. "Scared you’d look at me differently. That you’d leave."
"So instead you just didn’t tell me."
"Yes. And that was wrong."
Kate wraps her arms around herself.
"I protected you," she says quietly. "At the lake. With Andrew Chen. I lied to a board member from my own company to protect a man whose real story I didn’t even know." Her voice cracks on the last word. "You should have told me then, Grayson. The second I came back."
"You’re right. I should have."
Silence. Long and painful.
Then her phone buzzes. She glances at the screen and holds it up.
Maxwell:
We need to talk. Call me.
She stares at the message. Then at me.
"I don’t know what’s real anymore," she says. "My job. This exile. You. I built it all on something I didn’t fully see."
"Not all of it," I say. "What’s between us—that’s real, Kate."
"Is it? Or is it just proximity—two people thrown together who got confused?" She meets my eyes. "I can’t tell. And that’s the problem."
"Then let me prove it—"
"I need space to think." Firm. Not cruel. "Please."
She turns and walks inside.
I stand on the porch.
You deserved the truth. From the start.
I know that now.
Knowing too late is its own kind of failure.
I stay outside until the sun drops behind the ridge. Replaying every choice that led here. Every moment I told myself there’d be a better time to say it.
Then, from somewhere above me, I hear it.
The slow drag of a suitcase across the floor.