I spent most of the next twenty-four hours in tears, hiding in my room at my grandmother’s house. Failure pressed down on me, the weight unable to bear. I’d entered a marriage of convenience with Ryder Drake in order to save our house, and I’d failed. I’d warned myself to remain self-sufficient, and I’d failed. I’d told myself it would be the height of folly to fall in love with Ryder, and I’d done it anyway.

And worse, I’d told him. Even when he stood there hurling word after cruel word in my direction, all I could think of was how much I loved him.

I’d been better off alone. The weight of the debt had pressed down on me, but it had been a dull, suffocating kind of pain. Not this sharp, searing agony.

Before Ryder, I’d been able to function. Now, I was a wreck.

“Zoe, honey.” My grandmother stood in the doorway of my room, worry etched in sharp lines on her face. “I brought you some hot chocolate.”

At those words, so familiar to me from my childhood, fresh tears threatened. Hot chocolate was my grandmother’s solution to everything. Kids teased me at school for my worn-out clothing? A welcoming cup of hot chocolate waited. When I fell during soccer and scraped my knee, a mug of the steaming treat was my reward for being brave.

I reached for the drink, and my grandmother entered the room and sat next to me on the bed, pulling my head on her shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it, dear?”

Not really. “Ryder and I broke up.”

“I guessed as much.” Her gaze dropped to my left hand. My bare left hand. “What happened?”

I’d hidden the truth for so long. Not just the truth about my marriage. I’d concealed the amount of money we owed and the desperation of our situation, and I’d counted on my grandmother’s confusion with finances to keep her in the dark.

For the first time, I regretted my decision. Yes, my grandmother wasn’t good with numbers, but I shouldn’t have used that as a reason to lie to her. Because of my desire to spare her from the truth, the news that she was going to lose her house was going to come entirely as a shock. In nine days, the city was going to take her house away, and she’d had no time to prepare herself for it.

So I told her everything. The entire truth. The property tax balance. The city’s final ultimatum. The money that Ryder had given me in exchange for my cooperation. And the last insult, the extra eighty-three thousand dollars, which a bored-sounding clerk in the tax office had told me was a penalty for late payment. “They’re going to auction the house,” I gulped.

“And we need to leave in nine days.”

I shot her a surprised look, and her lips twisted in a wry smile. “Numbers might scare me, Zoe, but I can read,” she said, a mild rebuke in her tone.

“I’m sorry.” My voice was subdued. “I thought I could scrimp and save and pay it off before this happened.”

Her fingers stroked my hair. “Is that what you and Ryder fought about? Money?”

“No. There was an article in the paper about his project, and he thought I’d leaked the details to the media.” Even saying those words caused a pang in my heart. We’d been getting so close, but it had all been built on a false foundation. He didn’t trust me at all. He thought I was Brad’s mole. Brad, who I hadn’t even seen for the last six weeks.

That wasn’t the only thing that upset me. When I’d seen the pictures in the paper, I’d felt doubly betrayed. Ryder had promised the city a park after my impassioned speech, and I’d been so naive that I’d believed him. But the plans leaked to the Star told a very different story. The supposed park was no wider than the average city sidewalk. A mere strip of grass. No playground equipment, no benches, nothing. It was all a farce.

“Oh dear.” My grandmother sounded distressed as she absorbed my words. She liked Ryder.

“Yeah. Sucks, right?”

“Drink your hot chocolate.”

My lips twitched despite my misery. “Yes, grandma,” I said meekly.

“And we’ll make plans tomorrow.” She smiled at me. “I’ve lived in this house all my life. A change might be… nice.”

She was lying to make me feel better, and I loved her for it. And she was right. I couldn’t afford to crumble and wilt. Tomorrow, I’d pull myself together, beg my old employers for a job, and start scouring the internet for a place to live.

Tomorrow.

Today, my heart was still heavy, and my head ached from all the tears I’d shed.

Love really sucked.