She nodded and pressed a lingering kiss to my lips before backing away. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Liam Taylor, I promise.”

And just like that, the last month fell away like it had been nothing. Everything I’d been worrying about and afraid of suddenly felt like it had been worth the trouble. Turning around after she’d driven off, I went back into the gym and caught my dad’s eye.

“Let’s do this, old man.”

December 5

Kennedy

I GOT HOME as fast as I could, and practically ran to the condo. My sudden entrance seemed to have caught Kira and Rhys off guard, but I had too much adrenaline to think about it much.

“Hey, I’m sorry for interrupting your conversation! Apparently I like to do that,” I said with an awkward laugh, and looked directly at Rhys. “Do you think we could go to dinner . . . alone? I was hoping to talk to you about something.”

Rhys’s eyes darted over to Kira, but didn’t stay there for more than a second. “Yeah, sure. Let me change really quick.” He pulled out his bag from behind the couch, and carried it down the hall and into my room.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Kira, who was staring off into space. “I swear it’s nothing against you, I just need to do this. I need to talk to him.”

“Yeah, no. I get it,” she mumbled, and stood up from the love seat.

“Hey,” I said, and grabbed her arm when she started walking past me. “Are you okay? You’ve been so weird the last week or so.”

“I’m fine.”

My eyebrows pulled together. “Kira, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m just tired and I’ve had a headache all day. You two going to dinner will give me a chance to relax.”

“I can bring you something back,” I offered, but she shook her head as she pulled her arm free.

“No, I’m good. Food doesn’t sound good right now. I’ll see you when you get back.”

I stood there staring at her closed door until I heard Rhys walk back into the room.

“Ready? And can we take my truck? I haven’t had a reason to drive in a while.”

“Yeah, sure,” I murmured, then shook my head. “Yeah, I am. Do you know if Kira’s okay?”

Rhys shrugged. “Yeah, she’s seemed fine all day, why?”

“Huh. Okay. Well, yeah, I’m ready.”

The entire ride was tense, and I wondered if Rhys somehow knew what decision I’d made. Conversation was short and strained, and I was thankful when we pulled up to the restaurant so we would have the distractions of food and other people. We didn’t speak or look at each other as we glanced over the menu and placed our orders, and as we waited for the food, the conversation became as awkward as it had been in the car. It wasn’t until the food had been placed in front of us that I finally felt like I could tell him—like the food was a shield in a way.

“Rhys—” I began at the same time he said, “I need to talk to you, Kennedy.”

My heart raced, and I quickly pleaded, “Can I please go first?”

Rhys’s face looked like a mix of panic and uncertainty.

“I’m sorry, but I’m worried that whatever you have to say will make me unable to say what I need to.”

“Okay,” he finally said. “Talk to me.”

I opened my mouth, but shut it really quick and pointed at the food. “Could you eat while I talk? It’ll make this easier.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up, and with an amused look, he grabbed his fork and started eating.

With a deep breath in, I said, “I chose Liam, Rhys.”

Rhys’s eyes widened, and like Brian had done earlier, he stopped eating and just stared at me.

“Keep eating, please.” As soon as he was doing so, I continued. “I’m sorry—you’ll never know how sorry I am—that I couldn’t make a decision sooner. I’ve just been going crazy worrying about hurting you, and I—”

“Kennedy, Kennedy . . . it’s fine,” he said, cutting me off. “You do not have to explain why it took you this long. Not at all.”

“But I—”

“I showed up after four years and confused you. I get it. No one could blame you for taking a month, and I promise you that I don’t. Can I say what I wanted to tell you now?”

I blinked quickly and nodded. “Yeah, sure.” The first part had gone so well that I almost didn’t know how to react. Rhys looked pointedly at my food, and I quickly grabbed my fork and dug in like he’d done earlier.

“Okay . . . Kennedy, I fell in love with you the minute I saw you. As ridiculous as that sounds, you already know it’s true. Those three months with you were full of more life and passion than I’d ever imagined I’d have. When I had to leave you, I felt like I’d left myself with you . . . which, to be honest, made going undercover easier. I wasn’t myself anymore, I felt like I had nothing to live for, and that ended up helping. But the entire time I was gone, I was positive your dad would have told you the truth, and that you would be waiting for me whenever I got back. That hope, and remembering what we had, was what got me through those four years. But when I came looking for you and I realized how wrong I was . . . I was . . . I don’t even know how to explain what was going through my mind when I saw you again. But in that first moment of seeing you, I felt whole again, only to feel like half of me was ripped away when I realized the guy who opened the door wasn’t there for Kira. I couldn’t understand how I could be so in love with someone who no longer loved me.

“It didn’t take long, maybe a week since I had nothing else to do but think about it, but I quickly realized that it was the idea of us and loving you that I’d clung to for those years. All I thought about was how it had been between us when we were married, what I’d continued thinking about while I was gone, and how it felt now that I was near you again. I figured out that I loved you, but I had fallen out of love with you sometime while I was gone. Not consciously, but probably because in my mind I was still cutting ties—and that included not loving you—and I knew that I had to prepare for you not to be waiting. Like I said, it wasn’t conscious, because I’d been hoping for the opposite that whole time, but it didn’t change the reality of my feelings for you now.

“I should have left then. I should have apologized for turning your world upside down again, and left you to go back to your life. But I couldn’t. You’d moved on, but you were still giving us a chance like I’d asked for, and I knew I had to give us that chance too. I knew no matter what you decided, I would be happy. But something has changed in the last couple weeks, and to be completely honest with you, I’ve been terrified that you would choose me. I just didn’t know how to ask you not to after asking you to give me a second chance.”

Throughout his entire speech, I sat there with wide eyes, and I was pretty sure I’d stopped eating at some point during that time. As he got closer to finishing, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’re not mad? Wait! What’s happened in the last couple weeks?”

A secretive smile I’d known well a long time ago crossed his face, and he dropped his head. When he lifted it again, he asked, “Is it okay if I’m not ready to tell you yet? There’s someone else I need to talk to first.”