Chapter 29
Clara
The house smells like cardboard and laundry detergent, and the faintest trace of cinnamon apple candle Kelly keeps lighting even though it’s spring.
Still, it feels like endings.
“So, do you expect this place to be on the market long?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
Kelly folds a towel with sharp, efficient movements and drops it into a basket.
“Around here? Maybe.”
She doesn’t look up.
“Have you looked at new places yet?”
“No, but it’s Woodhaven.” She shrugs. “Evan loves the mountain. I thought maybe we’d rent one of the log cabins for the summer. There are a couple folks who lease them for holiday weekends.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They’re rustic, though. No heat. They stay empty most of the winter. But in summer?”
She pauses and smiles faintly. “The mountain is magic.”
Magic.
The word presses against something tender in my chest.
Summer.
I won’t be here in the summer.
At least… I don’t think I will.
The thought lands like a bruise.
I nod, pretending that didn’t just shatter something inside me.
We talk a little more.
Kelly excuses herself when her phone rings, and I assume it’s her lawyer.
Or Mike.
Or some new disaster waiting to unfold.
I’m still standing by the door when there’s a knock.
It’s late.
Too late for visitors.
I don’t check the window. I just open it.
And my world tilts.
Geoffrey.
Here.
Standing on the porch like he has the right.
“Clara!” he says, relief flooding his face. “I found you. Oh, thank God. This place is awful.”
He tries to push past me, and I plant my feet.
“What on earth are you doing here?”
He exhales dramatically.
“It’s time you stop this ridiculous temper tantrum.”
Temper tantrum.
“I strayed,” he continues, like he’s confessing to eating dessert before dinner. “I apologized. Now you need to come home.”
“What?” I stare at him. “Are you delusional?”
“Clara, be reasonable,” he says, lowering his voice like I’m the unstable one. “Who else is going to marry you and overlook all your… you-ness?”
My stomach drops.
“My what?”
“You refuse to diet. You’re incorrigible. You flit from project to project.” He smiles like he’s being generous. “I’m willing to overlook that, sweetheart. Just come home.”
Something cold and steady replaces the hurt.
“Geoffrey,” I say evenly, “you are out of your mind.”
He grabs my arm.
Hard.
“Get your hands off me.”
“Just let me kiss you,” he insists. “Let me make it up to you. Mr. Downey is asking about the wedding. I need to tell him something.”
“Tell him,” I snap, yanking my arm free, “that you fucked your secretary on my goddamn kitchen island and that wedding is off.”
His face darkens.
“You’re being hysterical.”
I laugh.
Hysterical.
Classic.
“Leave,” I say. “Now.”
He steps closer again, and I shove him back with both hands. “Get off me!”
And that’s when I see it.
Headlights.
A truck.
Parked down the road.
My heart drops straight into my stomach.
My pulse spikes so hard I feel it in my ears.
I know that truck.
Greyson.
He’s sitting behind the wheel.
Watching.
For one frozen second, our eyes lock through the windshield.
His expression is unreadable.
Stone.
Cold.
“Clara—” Geoffrey starts again, reaching for me like he still has any right.
And then the truck door slams.
The sound cracks through the night like a gunshot.
Greyson doesn’t walk.
He stalks.
Long, furious strides up the gravel drive, jaw set, shoulders tight. I’ve never seen him look like this.
Geoffrey barely has time to register him.
“What the hell is this?” Geoffrey snaps, squaring up like he’s about to deliver some smug speech.
He never gets the chance.
Greyson’s fist connects with his face in one clean, brutal motion.
The crack of knuckles against bone echoes off the porch.
Geoffrey goes down hard, stumbling backward off the bottom step and landing on his ass in the dirt.
“Oh my God!” I gasp.
Greyson doesn’t even look winded.
He looms over Geoffrey, fists clenched, chest heaving.
“You touch her again,” he growls, voice low and lethal, “and I will bury you on my mountain, you fuckshit.”
Geoffrey scrambles back, blood already dripping from his nose.
“You’re insane!” he spits.
“You’re trespassing,” Greyson fires back. “Get in your car. Now.”
Geoffrey looks at me, stunned and furious. “Clara, tell him—”
“Get out of here, Geoffrey,” I say coldly. “Now.”
He staggers to his feet, glaring at Greyson like he wants to fight back—but he doesn’t.
Because Geoffrey has never been brave.
He gets in his rental and peels out of the driveway, tires spitting gravel.
Silence falls.
Heavy.
Charged.
Greyson turns to me slowly.
And the look in his eyes makes my stomach drop all over again.
Anger.
Confusion.
Something darker.
“Explain,” he demands.
Not softly.
Not gently.
Just explain.
I stare at him, heart pounding.
“That’s my ex. Geoffrey. He just showed up,” I say, still shaking. “I didn’t know he was coming.”
“He was grabbing you,” Greyson snaps. “You let him grab you.”
“I did not let him—” My voice cracks. “He grabbed me and I shoved him off!”
Greyson drags a hand through his hair, pacing once like he’s trying to keep himself from exploding.
“I see you on the porch with him,” he says tightly. “He’s close. You’re not pushing him away fast enough.”
“Are you serious right now?” I whisper.
“You didn’t tell me he’d show up.”
“I didn’t know he would!”
My hands are trembling now.
Not from Geoffrey.
From this.
From the accusation hanging in the air.
“What did he want?”
“He wants me back,” I say, swallowing hard. “He thinks I’m throwing a tantrum. He thinks I’ll just come home because he snapped his fingers.”
Greyson’s jaw clenches.
“And?”
“And what?” I fire back. “You think I was considering it?”
He doesn’t answer immediately.
And that silence hurts more than the punch he threw.
“Do you think I would do that?” I ask quietly.
His eyes flicker.
“I don’t know what to think,” he admits.
That lands like a slap.
“I told him to fuck off,” I say. “I told him to tell his firm president he cheated on me on our kitchen island. I told him the wedding was off.”
Greyson goes still.
The fight drains from his shoulders just a fraction.
“He grabbed me, I didn’t invite him to,” I continue, voice shaking now. “And then you came flying in like a hurricane.”
A muscle jumps in his cheek.
“I saw red,” he mutters.
“Clearly.”
We stand there, breathing hard, the night pressing in around us.
“You think I’d cheat on you?” I ask again, because I need to hear it.
His eyes meet mine fully this time.
“No,” he says.
“Then why did you look at me like that?”
He hesitates.
“Because I thought I was about to lose you.”
The words crack something open.
I blink.
“Lose me?” I echo.
“He’s Manhattan,” Greyson says roughly. “He’s your world. Suits and dinners and whatever the hell that life is. I see him here and—” He breaks off, frustrated. “I see how easy it would be for you to go back.”
My throat tightens.
“You think that’s easy for me?” I whisper.
The porch light flickers above us.
“I left that night to find an artist whose work spoke to me, and then I came here and I-I like it,” I say.
“But would you walk away from it? Could you leave it all behind?”
“I think I already did walk away from it.”
“For me?” he asks.
“No,” I answer honestly. “For me.”
The truth hangs there.
“I’m still figuring it out, Greyson,” I add. “But I know I don’t want Geoffrey.”
Greyson exhales slowly.
“And you don’t get to question my loyalty because you’re scared,” I say quietly. “Not after everything.”
He winces.
That one hit.
“You’re right,” he says.
The admission is low. Hard-won.
“I’m sorry,” he adds. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Assumed?” I finish.
“Yeah.”
The anger in me softens, but it doesn’t disappear.
“You don’t get to fight for me and then doubt me in the same breath,” I say.
His eyes close briefly.
“Shit, I didn’t mean,” he murmurs.
We stand there in the quiet, the adrenaline fading, leaving behind something more fragile.
He steps closer, slower this time.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks, voice gentler now.
“No.”
His hand hovers near my arm like he wants to check but doesn’t know if he’s allowed.
I let him touch me.
Light.
Careful.
“I mean it. I’m not going anywhere with him,” I say firmly.
He nods once.
“Good, cause I’m not letting him near you again,” he replies.
A corner of my mouth lifts despite everything. “You made it quite clear how you feel about that.”
“I barely touched him.”
I snort.
His lips twitch.
A beat passes.
The night feels different now.
Raw.
Unfiltered.
“What is it?” I ask, because I can see it building in him—the storm gathering behind those dark eyes, the tension coiling in his jaw.
He drags a hand through his hair like he’s trying to grab hold of something slippery.
“I’m trying to figure out where you came from,” he says roughly. “And where you’re going. I’m trying to understand what the hell you’re doing to me, Clara.”
His voice cracks on my name.
“I built a life that didn’t need anyone,” he continues, stepping closer.
“I carved out this mountain so I wouldn’t have to depend on anybody ever again.
And then you show up in a thunderstorm, and suddenly I’m thinking about flowers and cabins and baseball games and whether you’re going to be here next month. ”
His chest rises hard.
“I’m wondering,” he admits, quieter now, almost afraid of the words, “if maybe you belong with me.”
Not to me.
With me.
And that somehow makes it worse. Better. Bigger.
My heart pounds so loud I’m sure he can hear it.
“I—I don’t know,” I whisper, because that’s the only honest thing I have. “But I know you don’t get to decide that for me. Not alone.”
My voice steadies as I say it.
“Not him. Not you. I’m not something to be claimed just because you’re afraid of losing me. I deserve more.”
He flinches slightly.
Not in anger.
In recognition.
His gaze doesn’t leave mine.
“Then tell me,” he says, and now there’s no edge in it—just raw, open need. “Where do you belong?”
The question lands deep.
Because I don’t know.
I don’t know if I belong in Manhattan or Woodhaven. In glass towers or log cabins. In boardrooms or bleachers.
I don’t know if I belong on this mountain.
I don’t know if I belong in his arms.
But I know this—when he looks at me like that, like I’m not an inconvenience or a charity case or something to tolerate—it feels like something real.
“I don’t have that answer yet,” I say softly. “I’m still figuring it out.”
The wind moves through the trees behind us.
The porch light hums faintly.
And for the first time tonight—this doesn’t feel like something slipping through my fingers.
It feels like a crossroads.
Like a line drawn in the dirt.
Like something worth standing still for instead of running from.
Something that might not be easy.
But might be ours—if we’re brave enough to fight for it.