My heart splinters. “What are you… you’re breaking it off?”
He turns to me, finally looking me in the eye. The storm is gone, and all that’s left is a barren landscape of cold tundra. “What’s gonna change, Romy? I’m still going to be Zander Shaw when we wake up tomorrow morning. I still have to do interviews. I still have to work to pay all these people under me. I can’t just stop working because I fell in?—”
“What?” My voice is a whisper.
He shakes his head, and I swear there are tears in his dark eyes. “Nothing. Just… just go. Pack your bag and go.”
Zander grabs his hat—the one I’d taken off and set on the table—and he walks out the door.
“Zander,” I call after him.
Beau calls, “Zan, come on. Come back here.” His gaze shoots to me, then the other way down the hall. “DeSoto, get Michaels on him now.”
I crumple onto the couch, and tears sting my eyes before they pour down my cheeks.
A body sinks down next to me, and two arms wrap around my shoulders and tug me into a hard chest. Beau makes sure I’m not alone. Just like Zander would want.
Chapter Forty-Four
Romy
I step off the airplane—the private plane that Zander paid to take me home because apparently, he’s done with me as soon as I challenge him.
DeSoto takes my suitcase, and I walk toward the small terminal where the private flights come in. But Lottie springs out the door and barrels toward me, hugging me so hard I stumble back. I look over her shoulder to see Poppy and my mom right behind her.
“Finally, you’re home. You know how boring this ranch has been without you?” Lottie says.
She’s dodging the reason I’m home. Someone called her because I sure as hell didn’t. And my guess is it was Beau—making sure somebody was here to pick up the pieces that Zander crumbled under his boot.
“I’m sure you survived fine. I’ll bet Brooks kept you busy.”
“Barely.” She pulls back and looks me over. “How are you doing?” Her eyes turn grim, and I guess she’s done. I give her credit for trying though.
“I’m fine.” Tears sting my eyes again, and I wipe them away. Poor DeSoto had to sit next to me the entire plane ride, handing me tissues and disposing of the old ones when they piled too high. “I don’t want to cry anymore, so let’s just… like… not talk about it.”
Poppy steps forward, giving me a big hug. “Just when I was starting to like him. Now I gotta go bash him online.”
“Don’t you dare go be a keyboard warrior,” I say.
“Some of those people are so nasty, they need to be put in their place.”
Beau had a whole conversation with Poppy and Lottie about staying off the comments sections last time he was at the ranch. He told them they’re just making it worse, but neither one has stopped telling off people who say shitty things about Zander or me online.
“No, Poppy,” my mom says in her motherly tone. “We’re thinking about changing all the Wi-Fi passwords and cutting her cell signal.”
Poppy shrugs unapologetically.
“How are you, sweetheart?” My mom steps forward, swallowing me in a hug. “It’s okay.” She runs her hand over my back, and the tears I’ve been pushing back set free. “I know it’s hard. Heartbreak is never easy.”
Once I collect myself, we all file out of the airport.
At the curb is a black SUV—tinted out—another thing Zander’s paying for. DeSoto opens the door for all of us to get in, puts my bag in the back, and sits up front with the driver.
Memories of being in the back seat of a similar SUV with Zander so many times surface. How easy and carefree it was. How I fell in love with him. And now it’s over. Because we can’t braid our two lives together.
We drive back toward Willowbrook. The Nebraska land is pretty much the same—stretching wide, winter fields. Nothing growing. Everything dead, just like me on the inside.
“So, you’re never gonna believe what happened,” Lottie starts a story, trying to lift my mood.
