“Excuse me?” Angelica stammered. “I don’t think—”

“Oh, I think you thought long and hard how best to use me,” Noah said, interrupting Angelica before she could offer an excuse for her behavior. There were no excuses he hadn’t heard before.

When, Angelica’s jaw fell open and she stared at him mutely, he shook his head sadly. He really should have known better. Hell, he had known better. Unfortunately, he’d let his friends convince him not to trust his instincts. That was certainly the last time he let that happen. “I have to admit; you had me fooled.”

“Me?” she cried, her eyes darting back and forth to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Leaning close, she whispered, “I’m not the one who turned into a raging asshole overnight.”

Too late, Noah realized that despite her lowered voice, the older couple to their right was eyeballing them excitedly, happy to be the first to land the latest bit of town gossip. That was probably the only thing Noah didn’t like about living in a small, tight-knit community; everyone knew everyone else’s business just as soon as it happened. Just as Naomi had known as soon as he and Angelica had hooked up, this would spread, too. No doubt this conversation would be common knowledge by dinnertime.

He leaned forward too, and rested his forearms on the table, his fists clenched tight in front of him. “How long did it take you to run back to your producers and tell them who I am? Did you all get a good laugh over how gullible I’d been?”

“Gullible?” Angelica asked, her brows angling into a deep vee. “You are many things, Noah, but gullible is not one of them.”

“No? I fell for your act easy enough, didn’t I?”

Angelica’s eyes flicked between his, searching for something. And then, with a resigned sigh, she leaned back in the booth, her expression weary and taut with hurt. “Okay, I’ll play. What act is that?”

Noah jutted his chin forward. “This one right here. The doe-eyed innocent.” His eyes raked over her, lingering on her pillow soft lips and all of her pretty, pretty curves. “When we both know you’re actually a manipulative little vixen.”

Angelica crossed her arms angrily, plumping her breasts up like an offering at the altar of all things womanly and divine. Forcing himself to drag his eyes away, Noah thought to himself, Damn, I’m really going to miss those.

“Out of curiosity,” Angelica said, her eyes flashing with antipathy, “has anyone ever told you you’re a small-minded egotistical son of a bitch? Because if that’s never happened before, consider me the first.”

Noah suppressed a grin. For as angry as he was, he really enjoyed Angelica’s sassy side, and he realized he’d miss that, too. “A couple of weeks ago,” he answered with his best approximation of a good-natured chuckle, one that belied his displeasure over Angelica’s duplicity. “Except it was more like ‘you male chauvinist piece of shit.’”

A small, unbidden smile tugged at his lips as he remembered his conversation with Naomi. But then that smile dimmed as he also recalled it was that discussion which had made him drop his guard in the first place, the one where he’d let himself imagine what it would be like to be in a real relationship with the woman sitting across from him. The woman who’d sold him out.

“Well, that too,” she replied with a pointed, definitive nod.

Noah studied her for a moment, and a feeling of resignation washed over him. Quietly, he asked, “Why’d you do it, Angelica? I thought we had something good.” He paused. “Or, at least, we could have.”

Angelica’s bottom lip trembled, but then she took a deep breath. With a long, slow exhale, Noah watched her face morph from enraged to resentful, through somber and into something that looked like… disappointment? “I never said a word to anyone, Noah. You can believe me or not, but I wouldn’t do that to you.”

He was still simmering with righteous indignation. But what if it was all a big misunderstanding? Noah wanted to trust her. The problem was, while her words sounded genuine enough, the slight shifting of her eyes told a different story.

“Why don’t I believe you?” he asked, voice heavy with disappointment and dread.

Angelica chewed on her lip and let out a thin sigh. “Okay, I told one person,” she admitted. “My friend Leah.”

“Leah?”

“The woman you’ve seen doing my makeup.”

“So, you did talk about me with someone affiliated with the show?”

Angelica shook her head. “It’s not like that. She’s my friend. She’s loyal to me, not the producers.”

“If you say so.” Noah shrugged, and looked out the window. He knew the best thing for him to do was to stand up and leave the restaurant, but he stayed glued to his seat. He couldn’t bring himself to walk away from Angelica. Not yet.

Angelica sat forward and reached out to take his hand, but he pulled it away at the last second. If she touched him, he didn’t know if he could keep a level head.

Slowly, she slid her hand back and linked her fingers in front of her. “The truth is, I was struggling with everything that happened between us last weekend, and I needed someone to talk to. But I swear, Noah, she wouldn’t have breathed a word.”

“But someone did. If it wasn’t you or Leah, who?”

“How well known is your father in this town?”

“I’m sorry?” he asked, not following her sudden change of topic.

“Your dad, the wine king or whatever he is. How many people in River Hill know who he is? Or better yet, who you are to him?”

Noah scratched his chin. Angelica enjoyed the feel of his rough stubble between her thighs and he liked seeing her all marked up, so he’d skipped his morning shave. Now he wished he hadn’t. “I don’t hide who I am, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

She sat up straighter in the booth. “Right. So that means anyone could have planted the idea to leverage your name and stature in the community in the producer's head. Literally anybody could have Googled you.” Her shoulders slumped forward. “And yet, your first instinct was to blame me.”

“It’s the timing, Angelica,” he breathed. “Nothing for months, and then bam. Suddenly Howdy Doody is in here practically salivating over the idea of introducing me as a ‘character.’” He used his fingers to make air quotes.

Angelica looked away. “I swear to you, it might look that way, but it isn’t.”

“Tell me something,” he said, and her eyes darted back to his.

“Anything.”

“If you were in my shoes, how would you feel? What would your first thought have been?”

Her head bowed forward, and she fidgeted with her napkin. When she raised her face back to his, Angelica’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “I would have trusted you. I would have believed you.”

“Why?” he asked, genuinely curious. All evidence pointed to Angelica being the leak—or if not her directly, then her friend Leah. But what Noah saw written on her face right now went so far against that being the case, he didn’t know what to believe anymore. Was she the problem here? Or was it him?

“I would have trusted you,” she sniffed, “because I care about you. Because I know you’re a man of your word. Because I knew you cared about me too.” She looked away then, and a single tear slid down her cheek. “Except maybe that’s not true at all.”

Noah groaned and fidgeted in his seat. He did care about her, which was why he was so torn up over everything that had just happened. If he didn’t, he would have laughed at the producer kid’s antics and walked out of the restaurant without a backward glance. But because of how much he cared, and how badly he wanted to build a future with Angelica, he’d needed to know why she’d betrayed him. Now, after hearing her impassioned plea, he found himself questioning his initial reaction. Maybe she’d been right about someone else in the town putting the idea into the producer’s head.

If only the timing hadn’t been so suspect, he thought, this wouldn’t be happening.

But this wasn’t the right place to be have this conversation. “Can we get out of here?” he asked, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Go somewhere we can talk about this with fewer prying eyes?” It seemed like half of the restaurant was leaning in their direction, trying to hear what they were saying.

Angelica nodded and looked around. The couple next to them who’d been eavesdropping so obviously had paid their bill and were now sitting there openly staring at them. “Yeah, I think that’s best.”

Noah reached into his wallet and threw down two twenties. He hadn’t ordered anything, but they’d monopolized a table for almost an hour when there’d been a line of people waiting to be seated. Frankie’s was popular for good reason. Noah shrugged on his coat and caught Max’s raised eyebrow from across the room. With a slight shake of his head he knew his friend would understand, he turned toward the door and settled his palm against the small of Angelica’s back to guide her out of the restaurant. When she stiffened her posture and looked over her shoulder at him, he dropped it. Her meaning was clear: you do not get to touch me right now. Not after the things you accused me of. He couldn’t blame her, much as he wanted to touch her, reassure himself that she was still there no matter what had been said between them.

When they stepped outside, an early autumn breeze ruffled Angelica’s blonde locks. He was so used to seeing her with her hair in a ponytail or a braid that when she wore it loose and wavy like this, he itched to run his fingers through it. When a lank of it whipped in front of her face and got stuck in her lip gloss, he gave in and reached up to push it behind her ear. Trailing his fingers over the silky strands as he came away, he whispered, “I love your hair.”

“Noah, please,” she moaned, swaying in to him. “You can’t do this to me.”

“Do what?” he asked, rubbing the blonde tresses between his work-roughened fingers.

“You’re sending me mixed signals,” she answered, her voice laced with confusion and sorrow. “You’re … you’re …” She let out a long huff and stepped out of reach. “You’re hurting me,” she finally finished.

Noah dropped his chin to his chest and let out a long sigh of his own. “I’m sorry.” He raised his face to meet her bewildered expression. “I’m just …” He looked out over the street toward the horizon, where the sun was beginning to set into vivid oranges and purples over the mountain. “I think I need some time.”

Angelica laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. “Time for what?”

Noah dragged his gaze back to hers. “Time to get my head on straight. To figure out why I keep jumping to the worst conclusions where you’re concerned. Time to figure out if I can be the man you need me to be.”

Angelica’s jaw dropped open, and she stared at him without speaking for a moment. “Wow,” she said finally. “That wasn’t what I expected you to say.”

“What did you expect?”

She shook her head slowly and chewed on her lip. “I think I expected you to tell me you couldn’t do this, that even though I was telling the truth, you couldn’t trust me. Honestly, I’m not sure I can trust you.”

Noah’s heart kicked in his chest. Earlier, he’d had every intention of saying those same words, but now that they’d slipped from between her lips instead, they lodged deep in his gut and ate a hole through his stomach lining. After all that had happened recently—his conversations with Naomi, his blowups with Angelica, and now this—Noah knew he had some shit to work through. He clearly had some deep-seated issues that had nothing to do with Angelica, but he thought she’d give him a chance. He’d hoped her earlier words, spoken in the present tense—because I care about you—would have been enough to sustain them. Now he wasn’t so sure. She couldn't trust him. It was like a gut punch. How had he fucked up so much, left both of them hurting so badly?

He laced his hands behind his head and paced a circle, eventually stopping where he’d begun. “I know,” he said quietly, dropping his hands to his side. “Please, just think about it, though. When I’m not being a complete asshole, think about what we have. How good it is between us. What we could have, if I can get my shit together.”

She peered at him through moistened lashes. “And what does that look like—you getting your shit together?”

He glanced away. “I don’t know,” he admitted, already feeling defeated. “Talk to someone, I guess. Figure out why I’m like this; why I have trust issues.”

Angelica took a step forward and laid a hand on his arm. “You’d do that?”

He looked down at where her small fingers rested against the bulk of his arm, then back up to her exquisite face. “Yeah,” he nodded. “I care about you, Angelica. Please don’t doubt that.” He’d never considered that solving his own issues might be a priority, never really even thought about talking to somebody about the complicated ways that love, family, and trust twisted themselves around inside him. But for Angelica—for a future with her? He’d find a way through the maze.

Eyes that were equal parts hope and caution flicked between his for a few protracted moments. In reality, only two or three seconds had elapsed, but it felt like the world had quit spinning and time stood still while he waited for her response. Eventually, she licked her lips and slid her hand from his arm.

With a quick nod, she said, “Okay.” And then Angelica took a step back, and then another, until there might as well have been a canyon between them. “You figure out your shit, and we’ll see where we stand then.”

After the way he’d treated her, Noah knew that was all he could ask of her. And yet the possibility that it might already be too late for them—that by the time he got his shit together she might have moved on or decided he wasn’t worth it after all—rested heavy on his shoulders.

Still, it’s a chance, he thought as he shoved his hands in his pockets and watched her rush to her car.