Savannah blinked, caught off guard by her honesty.
“But, Savy, no one is telling you to replace him.” Mallory’s voice was gentle, but insistent. “No one can replace him. But you’ve been drowning for a year, and I just… I just want you to come up for air.”
Savannah’s chest constricted. She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell Mallory she was fine. But she wasn’t.
And Mallory knew it.
So Savannah took a deep breath. And nodded. “One date,” she whispered, barely convincing herself.
Mallory grinned, reaching over to squeeze herhand. “That’s my girl.”
A Mistake From the Start
Savannah knew it was a mistake the second she stepped into the restaurant.
Everything was wrong—The lighting was too bright. The music was too soft. The conversations around her felt hollow, scripted.
And her date? He wasn’t Chase.
Ben Holman—owner of Holman Realty Group in Asheville. He’d been flirting with her for as long as she could remember. Eventually, she said yes.
He was polite. Charming, even. The kind of guy any woman would be lucky to sit across from—put-together, clean-cut, effortless.
But that was the problem.
Savannah had never wanted easy.
She wanted messy.
Chaotic.
Untamed.
She wanted Chase. And to his defense—Chase warned her about it.
She tried. God, she tried.
She smiled when she was supposed to. She laughed at all the right moments. She made small talk about work, about Asheville, about the latest movies and the changing seasons.
But her heart wasn’t in it. Her heart was somewhere else. With someone else.
And when Ben leaned forward, offering an easy smile, and asked, “What do you do for fun?”
Savannah froze.
Because she didn’t know how to answer.
Everything she had loved—everything that had ever made her feel alive—was tangled up in him.
Late-night drives? She and Chase used to pick random directions and just go, no destination, no plan—just the road and the promise of new places.
Old bookstores? Chase had taken her to that little shop near the marina once, had watched her get lost in the shelves, had memorized the way she traced the spines of books like they were sacred.
Dancing? The last time she danced, it had been barefoot on Chase’s dock, wrapped in his arms, swaying to the sound of the waves.
She couldn’t say any of that. So she forced a smile.
“You know,” she said, forcing a casual shrug, “just—normal things.”
