Present tense. Continuous. The kind of feeling that doesn’t stop just because you want it to.
And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it except watch her try to build a life with someone else and pretend that hoping was enough.
CHAPTER 12
Grace
Marcus was saying allthe right things.
“I was an idiot,” he said, sitting across from me at Gran’s kitchen table. “Emma was… I don’t even know what she was. An escape, maybe. Things between us had gotten so routine, and she was new and exciting, and I convinced myself that meant something.” He shook his head, expressing regret. “But losing you—really losing you—it made me realize what I’d thrown away. She wasn’t you, Grace. No one is.”
His hand reached across the table and covered mine. Warm. Familiar. Eleven years of muscle memory told me this was comfort, this was love, this was home.
But his touch felt wrong.
I couldn’t explain it. His hands were the same hands that had held mine a thousand times before. But now I noticed things I hadn’t before. How soft his palms were. Manicured nails, smooth skin—the hands of someone who’d never built anything with them.
Owen’s hands were calloused. Rough from work, from hauling hose and sanding wood and fixing things that neededfixing. When Owen touched me, I could feel the history in his skin. The labor. The care.
I pushed the comparison away.
Marcus’s cologne drifted across the table, something expensive and unfamiliar. He’d never worn cologne when we were together. This was new. Emma’s influence, maybe. Or some post-breakup reinvention I wasn’t part of.
Owen smelled like soap and sawdust and coffee. Like the carriage house. Like safety itself.
Stop it, I told myself. Stop comparing them.
“Grace?” Marcus squeezed my hand. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I pulled my hand back and reached for my tea. “Just tired.”
“You should rest more.” His voice was gentle, concerned. “The baby needs you healthy.”
The baby. Not our baby. Just the baby—like it was a project we were collaborating on.
I was seven months pregnant. Marcus was the father. I told myself I owed them both a chance to be a family.Didn’t I?
“I’m being careful,” I said. “Doc Martinez says everything looks good.”
“I want to come to the next appointment.” Marcus leaned forward, earnest. “I’ve missed so much already. I want to be there for everything from now on.”
Everything from now on—like the last seven months hadn’t happened. Like he could just pick up where we’d left off, before Emma, before the engagement, before he’d erased me from his life.
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “The next one’s Thursday.”
Marcus smiled. That familiar smile—the one that used to make my heart flip. Now it just made me tired.
“Thank you,” he said. “For not shutting the door.”
I thought about all the doors he’d closed without looking back. The calls that never went through. The emails that bounced. The weeks I spent talking to silence.
I nodded and didn’t say what I was thinking: I haven’t decided anything yet.
I started testing him.
Not on purpose. Not at first. I just started watching and paying attention the way Gran always told me to pay attention. People show you who they are, Grace. You just have to be willing to see it.
I watched Marcus with the guests at breakfast. He was charming, of course. He’d always been charming. He told stories about his work, asked questions about their travels, and made Mrs. Patterson laugh with an anecdote about a client in Tokyo.
