"She's probably sitting in that coffee shop right now," Ridge said, "convinced she's lost you forever. Convinced that telling the truth was the worst mistake she ever made. And tomorrow, she'll have to smile and serve coffee at that wedding and pretend her heart isn't breaking."
I thought about Sabrina, probably staring at the ceiling and replaying our conversation. Probably wondering if I'd ever forgive her, if I'd ever speak to her again. The image made my chest ache.
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked. "Just pretend it never happened?"
"No," Thatcher said. "You're supposed to forgive her. Because that's what you do when you love someone and they make a mistake. You forgive them, and you figure out how to move forward together."
"And if you can't do that," Holt added, "then maybe the Ex-List was right about you after all."
Fuck me. When did Trail Supper turn into a group therapy session? The words hit me like he’d just delivered an upper cut to my chin. Not because they were mean, but because they were true. If I couldn't find a way to forgive the woman I loved for making a mistake when she was hurt and young and stupid, then maybe I really was the kind of man who couldn't commit. Maybe I really was The Heartbreaker.
"She's not the same person who wrote that list," Ridge said after a few beats of quiet. "And neither are you. Look at what she's built with that coffee shop. Look at how she handled all the wedding chaos this week, even with that podcaster breathing down her neck. She's grown up, Trace. The question is, have you?"
I stared into the fire, watching the flames dance and flicker. In the distance, I could hear the sound of music drifting from town. It was probably the rehearsal dinner for tomorrow's wedding. In less than twenty-four hours, Sabrina would be pasting on a smile and playing hostess to a celebrity bride and her guests. And I'd be... what? Sitting at home and nursing my wounded pride?
What hurt most wasn’t the label of The Heartbreaker. It was knowing she’d carried that fear alone. That she hadn’t trusted me with the truth… not then, and not until everything imploded around us.
"She loves you," Thatcher said. "Has loved you for half her life. And yeah, she messed up. But she's trying to make it right. The question is, are you going to let her?"
I stared down at my beer, letting their words settle in my chest. The truth of it hit me all at once—Sabrina had been brave enough to write that list, brave enough to tell me the truth about how she felt, even knowing it might destroy everything between us. And what had I done? Run. Hidden. Let my pride keep me from seeing what was right in front of me.
She'd loved me for half her life. Half her life. While I'd been too stubborn and scared to see it, she'd been there, waiting, hoping. And when she finally found the courage to put her heart on the line, I'd thrown it back in her face.
"You're right," I finally said, looking around the circle at my friends. "She was trying to tell me something I was too much of a coward to hear."
Thatcher nodded, his gruff expression going soft for a second. "So what are you going to do about it?"
I stood. "I'm going to go home and figure out how to tell the woman I love that I'm sorry I was such an idiot."
"About time," Ridge said with a grin.
Holt clapped me on the shoulder. "Don't overthink it, man. Just tell her the truth.”
I nodded, suddenly eager to get home, to start figuring out what I was going to say to her. "Thanks, guys. For not letting me stay stupid forever."
“Somebody’s got to do it since your brother’s off living the dream,” Dane joked.
The drive home felt different somehow, like the weight I'd been carrying around for weeks was finally starting to lift. By the time I pulled into my driveway, I knew what I had to do. Tomorrow morning, first thing, I was going to drive to the Inn and find Sabrina.
It was time to choose love over fear. It was time to stop being The Heartbreaker and start being the man she deserved.
CHAPTER 10
SABRINA
After four sleepless nights of replaying every terrible moment with Trace, I dragged my hollow, guilt-ridden shell to the Hard Timber Inn at five-thirty in the morning, hoping work might numb the ache in my chest for a few hours. Instead, I walked straight into absolute chaos. For a moment, the noise didn’t register. My body was still carrying the weight of Trace’s silence, my mind raw from replaying every awful word between us. It took a full heartbeat before the panic of the room cut through.
Haven Hart, the highest-paid actress in Hollywood and the celebrity bride whose identity Mimi had finally revealed the moment the stretch limo pulled up in front of the Inn yesterday afternoon, was nowhere to be found. Her maid of honor paced the lobby in tears, her phone pressed to her ear as she tried reaching Haven for the fifteenth time. Mimi looked like she was one crisis away from a complete breakdown, her perfectly styled hair already showing signs of stress as she barked orders at confused vendors.
"She just disappeared," Mimi said, grabbing my arm the moment I walked through the door. "Left a note saying she needed to think. How can an internationally renowned Academy Award winning superstar sneak off without someone noticing? The ceremony is in six hours!"
I set my purse down on a side table and tried to project a calm I didn't feel. "Okay, let's?—"
"The photographer is threatening to leave if we can't guarantee the ceremony will happen. The florist wants to know if she should finish the arrangements. And the caterer..." Mimi gestured wildly at a man in chef's whites who stood by the kitchen door looking like he wanted to stab someone with a paring knife. "He's talking about packing up and heading back to Billings."
My phone buzzed with a text from Paige who was opening the coffee shop since I was helping with the wedding.
Paige: Hey, the podcaster is at the shop asking questions about you and Trace and Haven Hart. What do I say? And also, how could you not tell me she’s the one getting married?!?!
