“I don’t know.”
The honesty in that answer hurt worse than anger would have.
Because suddenly she looked tired.
Emotionally tired.
Like she’d just remembered why falling back into a relationship with him was reckless in the first place.
The server approached carefully with the check resting on a handheld payment device, clearly sensing the shift in energy at the table.
Johanna pulled her hand back silently.
Blaze paid, jaw tight, while she stared toward the window instead of looking at him.
The silence between them felt entirely different now. The easy intimacy that had existed earlier was gone, replaced by something fragile enough to crack beneath the weight of everything left unsaid between them. By the time they stepped outside, the March wind rolling off the water had turned noticeably colder, stinging against their skin while tension settled heavily in the space separating them.
As they walked toward the hotel, Blaze reached automatically for her waist but before his hand could settle there, she subtly moved a step ahead of him.
Blaze fell into step beside her. “Talk to me.”
Johanna finally lifted her eyes to his, and the sadness waiting there nearly undid him on the spot. “You know what the worst part is about all of this?”
Blaze stayed silent, already bracing himself for whatever came next.
Johanna swallowed hard before finally admitting, “I finally let myself believe this was safe.”
The words landed harder than anything she'd said all afternoon. Because safe was exactly what he'd been trying to give her. Before Blaze could find an answer, Johanna looked away.
He walked her back toward the Beaumont Hotel with his jaw locked so tight he could barely breathe normally. The entire walkback felt wrong, wrapped in a silence that felt far too careful between them.
Less than an hour ago, Johanna had been teasing him about wedding spreadsheets while they shared lemon pie beside the harbor. Now she walked beside him with her eyes fixed on the boardwalk ahead, moving slightly faster than usual like she needed distance before her emotions caught up to her.
Blaze hated the growing space between them far more than the silence itself.
He reached for her hand. “Jo.”
She didn’t look at him. “Hmm?”
That soft distracted response hurt worse somehow.
Blaze stopped walking altogether before turning fully toward her. Wind rolled off the harbor hard enough to lift loose curls around her face while sunlight glimmered across the water behind her.
“You really think I’d leave without fighting for us?”
Johanna’s throat tightened visibly before she finally looked at him. “You already did it once.”
The quietness in her voice sliced straight through his gut.
Blaze exhaled slowly through his nose. “That was before—”
“Before what?” she asked, turning toward him fully now. “Before you remembered you loved me after you left me?”
The question settled heavily between them.
Because the truth was, Blaze had never stopped loving her.
And maybe that was part of the problem.
