Chapter 20
Isabella spent Saturday morning with Daphne doing a final walk-through. The Christmas decorations were being delivered on Monday. Of course, it was period-appropriate greenery, some simple candles, and elegant touches that would make the inn feel festive without overwhelming it.
“Everything looks perfect,” Daphne said, checking off the items on her tablet. “The opening is going to be amazing.”
“If there still is an opening,” Isabella murmured, still wallowing in her sadness.
“Oh my goodness, there will be.” Daphne’s voice was firm. “You and Thomas will figure this out. Even if you don’t, even if you end up hating each other, this inn is still going to succeed because you’re brilliant at what you do, and this place is extraordinary.”
By evening, the workers had all left, and the inn stood quiet.
Isabella waited in the library, the room where so much of their partnership had been built.
Watching through the window as Thomas’s truck pulled into the driveway, she rehearsed what she wanted to say a dozen times, but as she watched him walk toward the entrance, all her prepared words evaporated.
He looked terrible - drawn, exhausted, older than he had just days ago - but when he saw her through the window, his expression shifted into something that looked terrified and hopeful all at once. This was it. This was the conversation that would either save them or wreck them.
Isabella took a deep breath and went to open the door.
Thomas stood in the doorway of the library. For a moment, neither of them moved. They just looked at each other across the space.
“Hey,” Isabella said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Hey.” He stepped inside and closed the door. “Thanks for agreeing to talk.”
“I almost didn’t. I’m still so angry with you, Thomas, and I feel hurt and confused. I don’t know how we could ever come back from this.”
“I know.” He moved to the window and looked out at the grounds. “I’ve spent the past five days thinking about why I did what I did, and not the surface reason of protecting you, and helping you, and using my connections, but the real reason.”
Isabella waited, her heart pounding.
He turned to face her. “I’m terrified of being helpless.
I have been that way my whole life, ever since my father’s crisis at least. When his business collapsed, and he faced bankruptcy - and potentially jail time - I felt powerless.
I was twenty-two years old, you know, about to graduate, planning a future with you, and suddenly everything was falling apart, and I couldn’t fix it. ”
He sat in one of the leather chairs. “Sarah’s family offered me one way to fix it, a terrible way that cost me you, but a way, and I took that because doing something - even something that destroyed my own happiness - felt better than doing nothing, felt better than being helpless.”
She remained standing, listening.
“Then Sarah got sick, and I spent seven years watching her decline, trying everything, controlling every aspect of her treatment and Emma’s care in our household, and desperately believing that if I just managed it all perfectly, I could keep her alive, but I couldn’t.
She died anyway. I felt helpless all over again.
That soul-crushing terror of watching someone you love suffer, and then being unable to fix it. ”
“Thomas—”
“Please, let me finish.” He looked up at her.
“I’ve spent fifteen years since then being with Emma alone, building my business, helping clients, serving on boards, and through all of it, I’ve been doing the same thing - controlling the outcomes, managing situations, making decisions for other people.
Because at least then I’m doing something, and I’m not helpless. ”
He stood and paced to the bookshelf, tracing his fingers along the restored wood.
“Then you came back into my life. You - the woman I had loved and lost, whom I’d made decisions for once before - and then Grayson threatened your project, and when you called me scared and asking for help, every instinct I have screamed at me to fix it.
Screamed at me to protect you, and to use everything in my power to make it disappear so you didn’t have to suffer through it. ”
“So you guaranteed my loan without telling me.”
“So I guaranteed your loan without telling you,” he confirmed. “I told myself I was protecting you from unnecessary stress, that you needed to focus on the opening and not worry about your finances, and that I was being helpful and loving and supportive.”
He turned to face her. “But you know, Robert Henderson asked me a question that I couldn’t stop thinking about.
He asked me what I was terrified of. And I’m afraid that if I don’t control the outcome, people I love will be destroyed by circumstances that I could have prevented.
I’m afraid of watching you struggle when I have the power to make it easier.
And most of all,” his voice dropped to barely audible.
“I’m afraid that if I’m just honest and vulnerable and not in control, you’ll see that I’m not strong enough, that I’m just a man who’s terrified all the time and trying desperately to hide it. ”
The admission hung in the air between them. It was the most honest thing she’d ever heard him say before.
“You hurt me,” she said, her voice shaking, “and not because you helped. I understand you were trying to help, but because you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth, you made decisions about my business, my loan, and my professional reputation without even including me.
You treated me like I was too fragile or too incapable to handle it. ”
“I know.”
“And it felt exactly like when you left me all those years ago, when you decided for both of us that that was the best thing without giving me any say, when you decided because you assumed you knew better.”
“You’re right. I did the same thing, and I can’t promise I won’t struggle with the same instincts again, because apparently they’re deeply ingrained.
But I can promise to fight them, to catch myself when I start trying to control instead of support you, to ask instead of deciding for you, and to be honest instead of protective. ”
“How do I know you mean it?” Isabella asked. “How do I know you won’t just do this again the next time things get difficult?”
“You don’t.” The words were simple. “You can’t know.
All I can do is show you through my actions over time.
If you’re not willing to take that risk, if you can’t trust me after what I’ve done, then I understand.
I’ll finish the work here as soon as possible, turn over all the documentation, and step away so you can run your inn without me undermining your authority. ”
But the thought of Thomas leaving - of never seeing him in the halls of the inn again - made Isabella’s chest constrict painfully.
“I canceled the Paris interview,” she said abruptly.
His head snapped up. “What?”
“Tuesday, after our fight, I sent an email declining the position.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
“Because I don’t want it. I never really wanted it.
I wanted an escape route in case this” - she gestured between them - “in case we didn’t work out.
In case you hurt me again. In case I needed to run. ”
She moved to the window, staring out over the grounds.
“Luella told me I’ve been running my whole life - through multiple corporate positions, through different cities, through different relationships - never staying anywhere long enough to build real roots because roots make you vulnerable.
” She turned to face him. “And you were right about me, too, in that fight. I do create exit strategies instead of committing completely. I keep one foot out the door so nobody can abandon me because I’m already halfway gone.
It’s my pattern. My way of protecting myself. ”
“Isabella…”
“Listen. I interviewed for that job on the phone because–”
“It was your dream.”
“Not because it was my dream,” she interrupted, “but because Grayson’s threats terrified me.
Because I realized just how vulnerable I actually am here - financially, professionally, and emotionally.
Because I’ve put everything into this inn, into this community, and now into you.
And that level of commitment is terrifying when you’ve spent your whole life protecting yourself.
My biggest fear was that I did need you to help me fix this, and I don’t like to need other people.
” She met his eyes. “I kept it a secret because I was ashamed. Because I knew it meant I wasn’t fully committed to us, and I wasn’t fully trusting you.
I was already planning my escape before you could hurt me first. And when you confronted me about it, I used it as a weapon.
Threw it at you to hurt you the same way you had hurt me. ”
“We both hurt each other,” Thomas said quietly.
“Yes, we did. Badly. And I don’t know if we can come back from this. I don’t know if two people with our particular damage can manage to build something healthy together, or if we’re going to keep triggering each other’s worst patterns.”
He crossed the room slowly and stopped a few feet from her. “I love you, Isabella. I’ve loved you for thirty years. Even when I was married to someone else, I am embarrassed to say. Even when I tried to convince myself I had moved on. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered. “And that’s what makes this so terrifying. Because loving you means trusting that you’re not going to make decisions for me. And trusting you means risking that you’ll hurt me again.”
“And loving you means trusting that you’re not going to run when things get hard. It means believing that you’ll stay even when you’re scared and that you won’t keep one foot out the door waiting for an excuse to leave.”