“Just listen to me!” I clutch his wrist as he walks out of the room. “I didn’t do this!”

Noah rips his arm away and pins me with a stare filled with disgust. “Stop fucking lying! I can’t look at you right now. Just let go!”

Pain slices through my heart as he rejects me. He hates me. I see it in his eyes, and my lips tremble. I need him.

“I’m not leaving!” I stand my ground as I rack my brain for anything to explain this. I didn’t send that email. I would never tell anyone about his past. “We have to talk. You can’t push me away because I love you!”

He gets nose to nose with me, closes his eyes for a moment before opening them again, and breathes heavily. “We’re done. There’s nothing more to say. I want you out of my place now.”

“You have to believe me, Noah. Please, you know me. You love me, and we have to figure this out. I don’t know how this happened, but I swear to God I didn’t do this! Why would I want to hurt you? Don’t you see . . . this doesn’t make sense?”

“So out of nowhere, everything I told you is suddenly exposed? All the details of my life are there for the world to see, under your name and sent from your email. Yet, you didn’t do it? Do you think I’m that stupid? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Or did you think you already got what you needed and didn’t care?”

His words wound me deeper than anything I’ve ever heard before. He doesn’t believe me, and I don’t know how to prove it. All I know is I didn’t send that email. I didn’t write those words, and I didn’t tell anyone what he said to me.

“What about the people who knew from your past? I’m not the only person that knows!” I grasp at straws, but that’s all that I can reach for.

“You think I didn’t consider that? Why would they risk losing everything now? My team handled all of that when I entered this business. And how would they suddenly know your name, Kristin? How would they have your email and send it to your boss? Explain any of that!”

“I know what it looks like, but please,” I plead. “Please, give me a few days to figure out what is going on.”

“Save your energy. I’ll be gone by tonight.”

My muscles go still, and I feel faint. He can’t leave like this. There’s an answer somewhere, and I need time to find it. I reach for him, but he pulls back, and my heart drops. A man, who last night couldn’t keep his hands off me, will no longer let me near him.

“I’m begging you. Please, give me a minute to figure out what is going on.”

Noah’s bright green eyes go hard as he stares me down. “I was leaving anyway.”

The smugness in his voice shakes me. He never said anything about leaving.

“Leaving?”

“I’m going to France. I got a role, and I was due there in a few days. Looks like you just made it a lot easier. Thanks for that.”

So, he’s been lying to me? Making me fall in love and planning to walk away?

“You promised you weren’t going anywhere!” I cry out.

He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “And you promised me I was the whole damn thing. Looks like we both lied.”

“Noah, don’t do this . . .”

Piece by piece, our relationship crumbles around me.

“Don’t.” He turns with his jaw clenched. “Don’t make me the bad guy here. Because right now, I’m doing everything I can not to hurt you. I’m holding back everything I’m feeling because watching you cry is killing me. That’s what love is, Kris. I’m willing to have my heart ripped from my fucking chest”—Noah pounds his fist over his heart—“because hurting you makes me sick. I love you. I love you despite the fact that you did this to us. I’m not the one who is doing a goddamn thing, sweetheart. This is all on you.” He shakes his head and storms from the bedroom.

I stand with nothing but a sheet wrapped around me and fall to my knees. My heart pounds against my chest as the tears fall relentlessly. “I swear, I love you,” I whisper to no one.

How can this be happening?

How was it not even five hours ago we were making love, and now we’re through?

I hear the front door slam, and I flinch. He can’t leave me. I won’t let him. I get to my feet and rush to the living room, but he’s not here. “Noah!” I call out for him, but he’s gone.

My already crippled heart has taken its final blow and will never recover.

Each breath is a struggle, but I make it to the bedroom, gasping for air. Losing him is too much. If he’d just come back, we could figure this out. There’s an explanation somewhere, but he’s given up on me. My teeth chatter, echoing through the empty room as I get myself dressed.

I grab the framed picture of us at the aquarium from his side of the bed and lose it.

Noah has his sunglasses on, I’m behind him with my head over his shoulder, Aubrey is in his arms, and Finn is jumping in front with his mouth open. How can he think this is even possible? How I feel is clear as day in the image. I love him. I let him meet my children. Why would I ever do this?

Maybe he needs time. He’ll see this isn’t real. He has to.

I wipe my tears and try to stop them from falling. It hurts so much.

Gathering my belongings, I do everything I can to force myself to get it together. I go over every detail of the last few days, and I can’t think of anything that was out of place. I sent the email from my home, verified that Erica got it, and then I’ve been with Noah.

I dropped the kids off at Scott’s while Noah waited at my house. Then, we came to his place, had the most intense sex of my life, ate, had more sex, and then everything imploded.

The condo feels cold, all the warmth and love we shared hours ago has evaporated. I look at the note on the counter, and the tears return.

---

I want you gone by the time I get back. Here’s money for a cab. I thought losing Tanya hurt, but it’s nothing compared to the damage you’ve caused me.

---

My God, I can’t take any more. He can keep his fucking money and my heart because neither of them is worth a damn. I walk to the front door, my hand resting on the cold metal, and I turn back around, trying to memorize this space.

“Goodbye, Noah,” I croak as a tear slides down my cheek.

I make my way outside with a hole where my heart used to be and walk the four blocks to the closest person who will believe me.

“Hello?” Erica answers the phone with a sleep-filled voice.

“You need to get that article off the fucking internet. I didn’t write that!” I sniff into the phone.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

I don’t have the time or the energy to discuss this. I need my friend and I need answers. “Just get the article down, Erica.”

“Okay, okay.” I hear shuffling around through the line. “I’m taking it down now, but you need to explain why I am. This article was amazing.”

The tears fall nonstop as I get closer to my destination. “It wasn’t. It was all lies and I never sent it. I don’t know what is going on, but take it off, it’s done enough damage.”

I disconnect the call and head up the stairs. When I reach the door, I ring the doorbell, now almost hyperventilating from crying so hard.

She doesn’t answer so I knock loudly, hoping to wake her.

“What the fuck—” Nicole’s eyes open wide, and I fall into her arms. “What happened?”

I start to sob, completely unabashed as I cling to my best friend. “He’s gone. He left me.”

“Who’s gone? Are the kids okay?” I shake my head as she rubs my back. “Kristin, talk to me! What the hell is going on?”

Nicole pulls my shoulders back with her concern etched on her face. I didn’t cry like this when Scott and I ended things. It didn’t hurt half as much as this does. I see the look in Noah’s eyes when he saw the email I never wrote, never sent. The way his voice was full of disappointment thinking I did this to us. His anger as he told me he was leaving anyway.

The stabbing pain in my chest is welcomed. The agony reminds me this is real, and I won’t wake up in a few minutes.

“Noah—” I pull in a shaky breath. “The article and . . . oh, Nic, it’s so bad. I don’t know how this happened, but he’s done with me. I’m so stupid for thinking this would work.” My voice trembles.

She leads us to the couch and wraps me in a blanket. I curl into a ball with my head in her lap like I did when we were little girls. Nicole looks at me with a sad smile as she plays with my hair.

“Complete sentences, Kris.”

“I feel like I’m dying inside.”

“I want to understand, honey, but you’re not making sense. What happened with the article?”

Nicole listens without saying a word as I explain the events of this morning. I flip between crying and anger when I tell her how I begged him to believe me. Yes, the evidence is damning, but he should’ve known. Instead, he left me there with a twenty and a note to further break my heart.

When there are no more tears left to cry, I just stare at the ceiling, completely numb.

After I’m silent for a while, Nicole speaks softly. “Would you have believed him?”

“What?”

“If the roles were reversed, would you believe he didn’t do it even after seeing it all?”

“Yes.” There isn’t a pause or a second thought in my answer. I push myself to sit up and wait for what made her ask that.

She sighs, and her gaze shifts to the floor. “I’m saying that it doesn’t make sense. How did you send your boss an email that you didn’t really send about all the stuff he told you? I know you would never do that, but I’ve known you since I was twelve. You’re not built that way, but even knowing you, I’m sitting here trying to make sense of it. I’m not a celebrity who has basically learned to distrust everyone or believe that people are just using me, but he is. You guys haven’t been together all that long, and . . .”

I start to shift, not wanting to hear this, but she grabs my wrist and pulls me back to the couch. “Let me go.”

“Not how this works. I know you didn’t do it, but you’ve got to see the whole picture.”

“Why do you have no problem believing me?” I ask.

“Because for my entire life I’ve wanted to be like you. I’ve wanted to be good, honest, loving, and half as pure as you are. There is no way you’re capable of destroying someone like that and living with yourself afterward.”

“Oh, Nic, you’re all those things.”

She pulls me into her arms. “This isn’t about me, but right there is what I’m talking about. I tell you something about you, and you turn it into me.”

I shake my head, trying to shove down the next wave of hurt. “I can’t do this. I can’t lose him. I know it seems so crazy, but I love him and I want a life with him. I thought he was my second chance. He was supposed to be . . .”

I can’t finish the words. It’s all too much. Loving him was easy, losing him is misery.

“I’m so sorry you’re hurting. You’ve had enough shit in your life, I hoped this would be different.”

The tears I thought were dried return again. Hurt isn’t a strong enough word. Pain, agony, wretchedness, torment . . . those come a little closer, but they still fall short.

“It would be one thing if any of it were true, you know? If I did it, I could accept him leaving and us being over. I have no answers as to how that email was sent. It’s there! Sitting in my sent box.” I grip my hair with both hands. “How? How did I send something I never wrote?”

“I don’t know. None of it makes sense. Whoever did this, clearly doesn’t want you to be with Noah. Does he have any crazy exes or anything you can think of? Anyone in his past who would want to hurt him?”

There are so many things about this that don’t add up. He told me that he didn’t really date and that her family was taken care of, but maybe they changed their minds. Noah and I haven’t been photographed together, so it isn’t like they would even know we were a thing. Unless he still speaks to them?

“Not that I know of.”

“What about Scott?” she asks.

I huff and look out the window as the sun starts to rise. “I would love to make him the villain, Lord knows he plays it well, but how could he? He doesn’t know anything about Noah’s past. Plus, we’ve been getting along for the most part. Scott has a new baby on the way and future wife, why would he give a shit about me?”

“Yeah, and he’s not that smart,” Nicole smirks.

“There’s that, too. I wish I could make sense of any of it.” I look at her through blurry vision. “As much as I want to think about it, I can’t. I want to see him, touch him, hear his voice, but he doesn’t want me anymore.”

If I had known this was all the time I’d have with him, I would’ve done everything differently. Looking at it now, I was stupid. Noah was never going to stick around, and I should’ve seen that. We live in different worlds, and believing this could’ve worked was reckless.

My phone rings, and I rush to find it. Maybe it’s Noah. I hope with all that’s inside me that it’s him.

However, the name flashing throws me for another loop. Why would my cousin’s wife be calling?

“Catherine? Is everything okay?”

“We should talk, babe. I just got off the phone with one of my publicists, and I read the article.”

My breath hitches. “The article?”

She clears her throat. “Noah Frazier is represented—”

“By you.”

“Yes, my firm handles his PR, and I’m on my way to meet with him, but I have to know . . .”

“I didn’t do this, Cat,” I say quickly.

“Okay.” She hesitates for a second. “When I saw your name, and Noah filled me in, I was shocked to hear you were behind it. Especially when they said you were his girlfriend.” Catherine muffles the phone and says something that I can’t make out.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, wondering how much worse this can be. My family is involved, my kids are going to have to hear that Noah is gone, and I’m broken.

“I’m sorry,” I say as my stomach rolls. There’s nothing I hate more than disappointing people. “I made my editor take it down.”

She sighs. “I know, but it was already out there, and nothing is ever really gone. I’m doing the best—” She stops, covers the phone, and then comes back. “Sorry, Jackson is flipping out. I’m having to stop him from losing his shit. He’s not happy that you’re involved.”

I wish I weren’t. “Tell him I’m sorry, too.”

“Let me rephrase that,” Catherine says. “He’s not happy someone is doing this to you. Listen, we’re in Tampa. He’s going to drop me off and then come to you. Okay?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know, but we’re going to.”

“I’m at Nicole’s. I’ll text you the address.”

We hang up, and Nicole looks at me with her brow raised.

“Jackson is coming here.”

“Your cousin?” she asks, her eyes going wide.

I nod.

“The ridiculously hot one that has abs on his abs?”

“Nicole,” I warn.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s married . . . I know. Doesn’t mean a girl can’t drool.”

Great. Now my best friend is going to hit on my cousin, and I’m too fucked in the head to care. As if this day couldn’t get any worse before nine AM.