“Yeah.” I smiled. “I know.”

And I stood there, waiting for their pea-sized brains to catch up again. Thunder Bay needed a new mayor. One who would give us all the permits we needed to start building over at The Cove.

We had some likely candidates right in this room.

Will dropped his wide eyes, absorbing the idea, while Michael sat back, staring at me.

“You can’t be serious,” Kai laughed out.

But I just cast my eyes to Rika, holding her gaze.

“What?” she asked, seeing me stare at her.

“You’re a good chess player,” I teased. “Politics. It’s the greatest chess game.”

She started laughing. “I’m not running for mayor, so I can protect your business interests, Damon. I don’t want to run that town.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

She opened her mouth to retort, but got lost for words for a moment. Finally, she blurted out, “Why me?”

“Because Michael couldn’t care less, and the rest of us are felons.”

“Hey, it’s America.” Will leaned back, slumping in his chair with a lazy smile. “Anything is possible.”

“You want the press digging up your past?” I challenged him and then looked to Kai. “You?”

The Internet was forever. We’d never get an ounce of peace as things got dug up and blasted online. And Kai and Will especially had no interest in bringing that stress onto their families.

“The girls are clean,” I said. “Rika needs to do it.

She let out a pathetic little laugh, still searching for an argument, and finally looked at Michael who still hadn’t said anything.

“Michael?” she prodded for his help. To offer some excuse why she shouldn’t do this.

But he hesitated, looking apologetic when he finally met her gaze. “It’s not a horrible idea, actually,” he said. “It would give us leverage, and you’d do well by the town. It’s worth thinking about.”

Her eyes flared, looking pissed. “What about Banks?”

“I have bigger plans for her,” I told them.

“Oh, you do?” Kai replied. “I ‘d like to hear the plans you have for my wife.”

“In good time.”

He shook his head at me, everyone falling silent as they processed what I was suggesting. I already gathered Michael had investors lined up and a bank in his corner for the land and the resort, but he wasn’t moving forward, because he anticipated problems with hiring workers and getting permits. That problem was now solved. I’d worked my ass off for a seat at this table.

If the past could be the past and fucking stay there, that was.

They all remained silent, sharing looks with each other and pondering how this would all play out with me involved.

But maybe I couldn’t win them, after all. Maybe the past was too much to swallow.

But then Will spoke up, not looking at me. “Say you’re sorry,” he said.

Sorry?

It only took a moment for me to realize what he was talking about.

He wanted an apology. For everything.

I dropped my eyes, frowning.

He wanted me to cower down? Like we all haven’t made fucking mistakes, and I hadn’t already proved that I wanted this and I was ready? That I wouldn’t go there again?

Words were shit. They didn’t mean anything.

I gave Winter a whole fucking monologue last night, and not one word from her since. What we did mattered, not what we said.

But they just stared at me, all waiting for me to say it, like if I said it everything would be fine. Would it be fine?

I wanted them back, though, and while my father taught me powerful men didn’t apologize, maybe—just this once—I could choke out the words. I had fucked up, after all, and I was actually pretty lucky they hadn’t taken my head over everything.

I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

They all just looked at me, frozen, for forever, and my stomach was knotted so tightly, I was about to hit someone if the words hung in the air any longer.

And then Michael rose from his seat and slipped into his suit jacket. “Contact Mike Bower and tell him we want to talk,” he told me and then walked over to kiss Rika goodbye.

I almost smiled. Bower ran the city council. We’d need to talk to him to get Rika on the ballot.

Will and Kai stood up after him, gathering their stuff and starting to leave with him.

“And we’ll meet at The Cove tomorrow with the architectural firm,” Michael informed me as he walked past. “Ten o’clock.”

I nodded, accepting his invitation to be there, relief immediately washing over me.

They left—I wasn’t sure where—but Rika and I stood there for a moment, silent. I knew there were things she wanted to say—maybe get mad about what just happened and being pushed into a new role with a hell of a lot of responsibility she hadn’t asked for—but she picked up her leather school bag and hooked it over her head, walking past me.

I let her go, standing there, but then I heard her footsteps stop and her voice behind me.

“Michael and Kai are smarter than you, you know?” she said.

I listened.

“Because if there’s one thing they know about revenge, Damon, it’s that it won’t feel nearly as good as her love will.”

I clenched my teeth together against the ache in my gut, but I felt it anyway.

Fuck you, Rika.

“But I think you already know that, don’t you?” she continued.

Fuck you so much.

“She’ll make you stronger,” she said. “And we need you strong.”

I closed my eyes, not wanting to feel the shit I felt when I was nineteen when I let myself…want her.

When I let myself fucking love her.

When I let my guard down and believed what was happening between us was stronger than anything and guys like me could have a completely different life.

But God, Rika was right. I knew she was right.

Nothing in my life had ever felt as good as Winter happy because of me.

I’d told her everything last night. I wanted her to understand.

“You should leave her alone,” Rika told me, and her voice was closer now like she’d turned around toward me. “Let her be calm and safe, and give her some room to breathe.”

I wasn’t asking for your opinion.

I heard her step closer behind me. “And in the meantime, be an adult. Get to work on something and show her you can survive without her. Without her respect, you have no chance.”

“No chance at what?”

“No chance at not becoming your fucking parents,” she replied.

A baseball lodged in my throat.

Was she right? Was that where I was heading? Was I ever going to be done with Winter? Did I want any other woman?

No.

And what if I got her pregnant? Would my kids hate me for hurting her? Was it just some endless fucking cycle, because I wouldn’t face that Rika was right, and Michael and Kai knew what I refused to see?

I wanted her.

I broke last night, because I didn’t want this. I just wanted that kid back who sat in my lap and drove my car.

I made her happy. Me.

And instead of sticking to the plan and making her hate that she wanted me, I hated that I still wanted her.

None of it was a lie, except my name.

It was real, and I wanted it again.

I fucking loved her.

Goddammit.

I spun around and walked past Rika, toward the elevator, but I heard her voice behind me again.

“And Damon?” she called.

I stopped.

“When and if she comes around, take her somewhere, just the two of you.”

What?

“It’s called a date,” she explained, “and it’s where you do something she likes that makes her happy. You and she will keep your clothes on for this.”

Oh, you’re funny. I shook my head, leaving her apartment and stepping into the elevator.

I pushed the button for the lobby. “A fucking date,” I mumbled.

Winter

Present

I came out of the shower, dressed and drying my hair with a towel as I heard the motors of heavy trucks and a jackhammer outside again.

What were they doing? It had been going on since yesterday morning, but I tried not to care at first, and then I just thought it was more installations from the new security. They’d been installing an alarm system and changing locks, but this sounded like serious construction.

I walked to the end of the hall, past my bedroom, and stood at the window, the warning beeps of a truck moving in reverse sounding off outside and workers calling out to one another. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, though.

Damon had disappeared again after the fight in my bedroom, and I hadn’t talked to him or heard him in the house for almost two days.

Two days of freedom, rehearsing at the studio, practicing more at home, planning with Rika and Alex and brainstorming ideas for how to get me on some show bills or into outdoor festivals.

Someone climbed the stairs behind me, and I recognized the footfalls. Crane had this way of falling into his steps, almost like skidding, on the hardwood.

“What’s the noise outside?” I asked over my shoulder.

I felt him approach and waited.

“Mr. Torrance is having the ‘stupid, gaudy, fucking fountain’ removed, he said.”

I almost wanted to laugh at the way he repeated Damon’s words, throwing shade.

But then they sank in.

“Removed,” I mumbled.

He was taking out the fountain in front of my house. Throwing it away. Getting rid of it.

Like he didn’t want any reminder of the past or what he fell in love with about us as a boy.

He wanted to kill it.

I stopped drying my hair, holding the towel in my hands. “Is he here?” I asked.

“He’s close.”

Close. What does that mean? Was he always close? Even when he left?

“Do you need something?” Crane inquired. “I don’t expect him back to the house today, but I can get a message to him.”