“I was confused. Roger meant nothing—”
“Roger meant enough for you to destroy a three-year relationship.”
“I was scared!” Ollie’s voice cracked, and for a moment, he almost seemed genuine. “We were getting serious, and I panicked. I self-sabotaged. It’s a pattern, my therapist says—”
“I don’t care what your therapist says.” Farley stepped back, putting more distance between them. “I cared about what you said. What you did. And what you did was humiliate me in front of everyone I worked with.”
“I know. And I’m so sorry.” Ollie reached for him again. “But seeing you with him”—he jerked his head toward me—"made me realize what I lost. Farley, please. Give me another chance."
I watched this unfold with a growing sense of surreality. This was Ollie. The man who’d shattered Farley so completely that he’d fled to the mountains to hide. The man whose betrayal I’d heard about in fragments—the personal assistant, the book release party, the complete destruction of trust.
And now he was here, in this cabin, asking for another chance like he deserved one.
“Get away from me,” Farley said. “And get out of this cabin.”
“Farley—”
“I mean it, Ollie. I don’t want to hear your apologies. I don’t want to hear about your therapist or your patterns or your sudden realizations. You had three years to realize what you had, and you threw it all away for that fucking twink Roger. That’s on you. Not me.”
“But this—” Ollie gestured between Farley and me, his lip curling slightly. “This isn’t real. You’ve known him, what, a week? Two? He’s a soap opera actor, Farley. He’s using you for publicity.”
“He’s not using me.”
“Of course he is. Look at this.” Ollie swept his arm around the room—at Sabrina, at the window where paparazzi were visible, at the chaos that had descended on our quiet mountain retreat. “This is his world. Cameras and scandals and people selling private moments for clicks. Seriously, is this the life you want?”
Farley didn’t answer.
My heart stopped.
“That’s what I thought.” Ollie’s smile was triumphant, ugly. “Come back to New York with me. We can fix this.We can fix us.”
“There is no us,” Farley said, but his voice was quieter now. Uncertain. “There hasn’t been an us since you—”
A flash went off outside the window. Then another. Someone was shouting my name again, and I heard the crunch of morefootsteps, more people arriving, the circus growing bigger by the minute.
“This is perfect,” Sabrina muttered, tapping at her phone. “The drama is incredible. If we can get a photo of all three of you together—”
“Sabrina, I swear to God—” I started.
But I didn’t get to finish. Because at that moment, the front door burst open, and two photographers stumbled in, cameras already raised, flashes already firing.
“Dr. Blaze! Who’s the man in the video?”
“Is this a love triangle?”
Gladys was shouting at them to get out. Sabrina was positioning herself in the background like she wanted to be in the shots. Ollie was trying to move closer to Farley, who was backing away, his face a mask of horror.
And I stood in the middle of it all, frozen, watching everything I’d built with Farley crumble in real time.
“Get out!” I finally shouted, stepping in front of Farley, trying to block him from the cameras. “All of you, get out! This is private property!”
“The people have a right to know—”
“The people can go to hell!” I grabbed the nearest photographer by the arm and physically pushed him toward the door. “Out! Now!”
It took several chaotic minutes, but eventually—with Gladys threatening to get her shotgun and Purrsephone emerging to hiss at anyone who came near us—we got the photographers out. The door slammed shut. Gladys threw the deadbolt.
Silence.
