My week with Colton was incredible. We had two separate spa days, filled with all sorts of things I never imagined people would actually do to their bodies. I sifted through the clothes he had brought up to the room and picked out a few new outfits. I even sat down with Colt and searched through a few business properties I’d had my eye on so I could jot down his professional thoughts on the building and the location, given his expertise in the matter. We had movies and television shows at our disposal. Wonderful food coming up from the kitchen. We spent our nights soaking in the hot tub while watching the sunset over the beach, and we shared a passion every night that reminded me exactly how strong and beautiful and sensual I really was deep down.

But waking up in Colt’s arms topped the cake.

I gazed out the window, my small suitcase leaning against my leg. Colt had it ordered and delivered to my room so I could take my new clothes home with me. But I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to walk back into the drama with Matthew. I didn’t want to face my father’s anger and the slaughtering of my reputation and the unknowns that dotted my future because of some raging angry ex-fiance.

I wanted to stay with Colt in this beautiful bubble we had created for ourselves.

I didn’t want it to end.

“You ready, Callie?”

His voice pierced my thoughts and brought tears to my eyes. I shook my head ‘no’, fearful that if I spoke, the tears would fall. I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready to leave. The real world didn’t exist, so long as we stayed cooped up together. And in some ways, I hated that part of my personality. I’d always prided myself in my ability to go out here, bust through walls, and break down doors to get what I needed. I knew, in the back of my mind, I couldn't let Matthew shut me out. I couldn’t let him get the upper hand.

But, it also didn’t feel like that.

I felt Colt’s hands come down onto my shoulders and I quickly brushed away my tears. I wanted like to continue this way. I wanted to keep waking up in his arms and sharing breakfast with him. I wanted to keep making memories with him and talking through the future of our businesses together. Well, the business I wanted to create, anyway. It wasn’t just the luxuriousness of it all. It wasn’t just what he could spoil me with. It was the shared mindset. The innate ability to be myself with him. It was the trust and the conversations that came because of that trust.

It was the passion he filled my body with at night, rocking against me until I wanted to cry out and pass out at the same time.

“I know you don’t want to, but we need to get going,” he said.

“It’s just a beautiful view. I want to cherish it a second longer.”

He threaded his arms around my waist and I leaned my head against his chest. He knew I was lying. And I knew he knew. But, he didn’t push, and I was thankful for that. I was thankful for so many things when it came to him. His strength. His level-headed nature. His fierce protection of me. His connection that he used to always read what I needed at the most opportune times. I drew in a deep breath before I reached down for my suitcase, but Colt swooped it up before I could grab it. His hand fell to the small of my back as I looked up at him, finding him staring down at me with a stern look on his face.

“I’m here every step of the way,” he said.

And his words gave me the strength I needed to put one foot in front of the other.

We checked out of the hotel and got into his car, then headed back to the house. And as each mile passed us by, my shoulders grew heavier with fear. I had no idea what was waiting for me once we got home. Was my father still angry? Would Matthew be there? Did the lawyer have any news for us? Had my reputation gone up in smoke?

I walked through a fog as dense as the hurt in my soul, and didn’t come out of it until I felt Colt’s hand slide over my knee underneath the dining room table.

“Miss Roper?”

“Callie.”

“Sweetheart?”

I snapped out of my trance and found myself face-to-face with Mr. Clemmons.

“I’m sorry. It’s been an interesting summer. Did you say something?” I asked.

“Mr. Clemmons asked you how up to date you are on the court case,” my father said.

“She hasn’t heard the most recent news,” Colt said.

“I haven’t been updated on anything since the beginning of the week, Mr. Clemmons.”

“Then, allow me to catch you up,” the lawyer said.

“That won’t be necessary,” my father said.

“Yes, it is,” I said curtly.

I flashed him a look as Colt gripped my knee a little tighter. I reached down and shoved his hand away, no longer wanting to deal with his touch. He kept his promise. He kept me in the dark so my father could clean up some sort of mess. But this was my life and there was no reason for any other secrets to be kept.

“Why are you here, Mr. Clemmons? And feel free to answer as thoroughly as possible,” I said.

His eyes darted between Colt’s and my father’s before I cleared my throat.

“This is my lawsuit. You don’t need their permission,” I said.

“Very well,” he sighed. “Throughout the course of the week, more pictures of Mr. Jennings with other women surfaced on the internet. Needless to say, the press had a field day with it.”

“Where there’s one dead rat,” I said.

“There’s several alive, yes. With that being said, I took the liberty of identifying the women in the pictures and hiring a private investigator to backtrack their whereabouts with a private investigator. With the help of a very trusted friend, we were able to track down Mr. Jennings’ bank records and match up some of the purchases on the document you were served with to those timelines.”

“With the other women,” I said.

“Exactly.”

It should have shocked me. I should have been distraught. But I didn’t feel that way at all. There was no shock. There was no anger. There was no sadness. There was only a numbness that trickled throughout my body.

I wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

“One of the things I found that busted this case wide open was one of the pictures that surfaced at the beginning of the week. I’ll spare you the details on her as well as the contents of the picture, but it turns out that a few pictures of them were taken during a trip to London.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Was it a trip to London that was taken five months ago?”

“Yes. It was. How did you know that?” Mr. Clemmons asked.

A wry sliver of laughter fell from my lips as I shook my head.

“He asked me to go to London with him and I had to decline. I had the flu.”

“You were sick?” my father asked.

“You didn’t tell me you were sick,” Colt said.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Again, I should have been hurt. But that numbness quickly gave way to anger. Not the type of anger from a broken heart, but the type of anger that comes with the betrayal of trust. The kind that ruins relationships and tears friendships apart. The kind that seeps into the bones of families and dissolves connections in an instant.

How could I have been so stupid?

“The good thing about this is that it casts doubt. If one of these girls was taken on a vacation he’s attributed to you in these documents, who’s to say that any of these vacations are charges you’re responsible for? It casts reasonable doubt, and with that doubt came a reduction in the money Mr. Jennings is asking for,” Clemmons said.

“By how much?” I sighed.

“About eighty percent. Out of those eighty percent, I can prove with bank transactions and those pictures floating around that you were nowhere near seventy percent of those transactions. The other thirty percent uses the idea of reasonable doubt to get them scratched off the list.”

“Because the judge won’t be able to tell if it was me or the other woman he was spending his trust fund on,” I spat.

“I filed an emergency countersuit three days ago with all of this information in play. And when I heard back from Mr. Jennings’ lawyer, they accepted the downgrade.”

“Fifty eight thousand?”

I opened my eyes and found all three men staring at me with a mixture of shock and curiosity in their eyes.

“Very close, Miss Roper. Fifty five thousand,” Clemmons said.

“Yep. That’s about eighty percent of the original seven hundred thousand,” I said.

“It’s a massive feat, Miss Roper. A big win, if you ask me.”

“That isn’t good enough,” Colt said.

And without thinking, I slid my hand onto his knee.

“Thank you so much for the work you’ve done on this, Mr. Clemmons. I really do appreciate it,” I said.

“It’s been a pleasure. People who use the court system to manipulate people are the worst kinds of people,” he said.

“Amen to that,” my father said flatly.

“What are the chances this will go to court?” I asked.

“It shouldn't even be going to court at all. This should be dropped,” Colt said.

I patted his knee, watching out of the corner of my eye as he relaxed back into his chair.

“We’re a little on edge, Mr. Clemmons,” I said.

“Trust me, I’m not taking anything personally. But, to answer your question, the chances of this going to court are all dependent on what happens when I hear back from Mr. Jennings’ lawyer. The amount of money being sued for has been officially dropped, and now it’s up to them whether to pursue it or drop the lawsuit altogether.”

“When do you expect to hear from them?”

“No later than the middle of next week.”

“I want to thank you again for your help, Mr. Clemmons.”

“I’ll be here until the end of it,” he said.

“I also want to thank you, Dad, for handling all of this while I was gone,” I said.

“Of course, sweetheart. You’d dealt with enough coming from Matthew,” he said.

“And I want to thank you, Colt, for a wonderful week away,” I said.

I turned my eyes up to his and felt a small smile tug across my cheeks.

“Always, Little Callie. Always,” he said.

I drew in a deep breath before I stood from my seat. I shook Mr. Clemmons’ hand, then I escorted him to the front door. I stood there on the porch, watching as he drove away, and the entire time I tried to figure out why I felt so calm. Any other woman in my position would be up in arms. Falling apart at the seams. Crying her eyes out every night. But, I felt more put together and at ease than I had in months. Even years. And given the fact that my life had completely upended itself, I should have felt the opposite.

“That was an impressive calculation you did back there.”

I looked up into the eyes of my father as he approached my side.

“You know I’ve always been good with numbers,” I said.

“I’ve never known you to be that good,” Colt said.

I looked over, watching as he came up to the other side of me. The two men I loved most, standing behind both of my shoulders and gazing out into the world beyond the comfort of our porch. I’d grown up rocking on that porch. Swinging on a porch swing that no longer existed on that porch. Drinking lemonade with my mother and watching storms from that porch. It was astounding, how many memories concrete and brick could absorb. Maybe that was what gave me comfort. The idea of home that surrounded me, even in the darkest of times.

“I’m proud of you, Callie,” my father said.

“He took the words right out of my mouth,” Colt said.

But when Colton’s voice fell over my ears, my heart skipped a beat. It flooded my body with a relief and a comfort that should have been nonexistent at a point like this. And that was when I realized what was happening. I wasn’t comforted by my home. Or my memories. I wasn’t standing my ground because I was strong and independent. I wasn’t grounded because I didn’t care, or because I didn’t hurt. I felt this way because of Colt. Because of the time I spent with him.

I felt comfortable because I felt secure. And I felt secure… because of him.