I blow my nose into a tissue and ball it up, probably the hundredth one I’ve tossed into the trash in the past twenty minutes. Mom rubs my back, but it doesn’t stop the sobs from quaking my shoulders. I can’t remember the last time I cried like this over Jack.

Wait, scratch that. I do remember. It was the night of the infamous voicemail.

That stung. Really freaking badly. And I felt that same God-awful, gut-wrenching pain again when I saw him standing in the office reception area. They say you can never remember pain, but I’d like to tell them that you most certainly can.

I’d felt my heart being torn from my chest, stomped on, and shoved back into the hollow cavity before. And those sensations came rushing back once his eyes met mine.

Yes, I know that pain.

The bathroom door flies open, and Tessa rushes inside, bundled into a coat, cap, and scarf. Her cheeks are pink from the cold. “Cammy, I need to talk to you.”

I glare at her. “Something tells me you should have spoken those very words a little sooner.”

She sinks down onto the couch opposite me and sighs. “Listen, I know you’re upset. I would be, too. But—”

“Tessa, you knew he was one of the investors! You knew he’d be coming here after what he did to me! But all you cared about was money! You saw dollar signs so you said screw Cam’s feelings. She’ll get over it, and I’ll get rich!”

Mom gasps. “Camryn! I’m sure she didn’t know that Jack would be here today. She’d never set you up like that.” Her eyes flicker over to Tessa’s. “Isn’t that right, Tess?”

Tessa pulls off her cap and runs a hand through her hair. “Well, she’s kind of right…”

I jump out of my chair. “My God! You are such a greedy bitch!”

“Hey, hey! Easy, there!” She stands up, her nostrils flaring. “I resent the name calling, Cam. I did know Jack was coming. I found out while you were inhaling your fifth brownie at the diner! Two hours ago! That’s when Ian told me Jack was part of the team. I had no idea before that, I swear. And I tried to tell you before they showed up, but I…” She stops, wringing her hands together.

“But you what? Figured that I’d blow your deal if you’d given me a heads-up? Like that decision would really rest on my shoulders since Jack is the one who proved that he is a complete heartless asshole.”

Mom’s head flips back and forth between us, but she still doesn’t speak.

“Not exactly.”

“Well, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Tessa turns toward the mirror and sweeps a finger under her eyes to fix her perfect liner. “I just want you to understand something first, Cam. Never in my life could I have ever dreamed that this would come back to bite me in the ass.”

“What the heck are you talking about?” My eyes narrow at my sister’s reflection.

She twists toward me and cocks her head to the side. “I did something, Cam. Something really bad. Something I feel horrible about. Something you’re probably going to want to disown me for.” She grabs my hands, squeezing them in her cold and clammy ones. “But please understand, I only did it for you.”

I can feel the color drain from my face as she rehashes, in great detail, her grand plan for rescuing me from my misery and for giving me the reason to spread my wings and take control of my future.

She’d always been so fiercely independent and driven. It never occurred to her that I wasn’t cut from the same mold, that my future, unlike hers, didn’t need to be paved with diamonds. I didn’t need to take Paris by storm in my own Gulf Stream or cruise down the California Turnpike in a Maserati. My future was already bright…with Jack by my side. I didn’t need anything else. After we broke up, I went to Stanford because I knew it would make my family happy that I’d taken a step toward my bright future. I took the job at Google because it was the next logical step for me.

I knew they needed to see me make those choices, to see me move on with my life.

But none of it made me happy.

Jack made me happy. He made me feel whole.

But then he closed our chapter without warning.

Or so I thought.

And I never really felt that same happiness again.

Rage courses through me as Tessa changes course and starts rattling off plans for Feedn Time, glossing over the fact that she completely decimated my dreams. Does she really think I give a crap about wholesale contracts and distribution models right now?

I clench my fists. “Can you just shut the fuck up about your grand plans for one second?”

“Camryn Ellis! I don’t appreciate that language!” Mom’s eyes widen in shock that I’d allowed those expletives to spew from my mouth.

“Mom! Seriously? Tessa is the reason why my whole life went up in smoke, and I’m supposed to just shrug it off because she came clean after all this time?”

“With all due respect, sweetie…” Mom exchanges a glance with Tessa. “Your sister may not have handled things the right way, but she only had your best interests at heart. Besides,” Mom pauses to check her nail polish before taking a deep breath to continue her thought. “It isn’t like Jack put up a fight. He never contacted you to find out whether or not you really did pick up with Drew. He willingly let you go, never even asking the question.”

My mouth drops open. Even Tessa stares at Mom, speechless.

She’s right. He let me go.

He let me go, no questions asked.

I can be angry at Tessa, but is she really the one to blame? Or is she the safer one to blame because it cushions some of the painful blow of having the love of my life walk away from our future without so much as a casual glance backward?

Tessa grazes my arm. “Cammy, I’m so sorry. But the amazing thing is I think we can salvage things here! I told Jack the truth about what I did, and he still wants to work with us! He feels confident about our business model and thinks that we have a great future. And…” She tilts my chin upward. “…he wants to make things right between you. Between all of us. Give him a chance, Cam. Hear him out. Do it for the company!”

“You are absolutely freaking insane if you think I want any part of this. I’m getting out of here. You guys can keep your meetings and figure out how you want to work together, but I’m going back to California. I just…I can’t do this.”

I push open the door to the ladies’ room with as much force as I can muster before letting the rejection and disappointment consume me. Tears flow freely, running down my cheeks in torrents, and the space once occupied by my heart has never felt more vacant.

“Cammy, just tell Dad you’re okay with all of this,” Tessa calls from the lounge area. “You know he’ll agree to keep the meeting if you say the word!”

Mom mumbles something and Tessa grunts a response. “You know he always needs to make sure she’s taken care of,” she says, probably thinking it’s not loud enough for me to hear, but the words pelt me like paint balls that never explode once they make contact. Each one pounds my mind and body, unleashing all of the anger, angst, and pain from years past.

I need to get away from these people. I should have never come home. Christmas in northern California is just fine. It’s vegan, and free of phosphates and family drama. Why the hell did I agree to even get on that plane in the first place? I was smart to stay out there for all of this time. My heart was safe, my mind otherwise occupied.

I’d always wondered what made Jack pull away from me. Did he find some leggy British supermodel to replace me with? A young Elizabeth Hurley? Thoughts of him screwing some Euro-trash bitch kept me up at night…too many nights to count. I’d spent so much time wondering, and crying, and praying that it was all just a really long nightmare.

But every morning, I’d wake up, flush with toxic thoughts from the night before.

If it was a nightmare, it was the longest one I’d ever encountered, one that bleeds into every waking hour.

I never got any answers to my questions. No amount of praying sent Jack home to me. I begged and pleaded with the universe to make him call, to make him explain why he’d discarded me.

Nobody ever fulfilled my tearful requests for an explanation.

I finally have my answer. There was never any supermodel. There was only a single lie, one which he’d never even bothered to confirm before cutting me off. He believed Tessa’s bullshit, and it was enough for him to pull the plug on our relationship.

What in the fuck does that say about him?

I square my shoulders and run out of the office building. I hear my mother’s voice in the distance, calling me back, but I keep running. Like a moron, since it’s freezing outside and the only thing between me and the elements is a heavy, cable knit sweater I’d picked up before coming home. It’s most assuredly some type of synthetic material since it’s from California and there are probably laws against selling sweaters there made of actual wool.

The revolving doors swivel and the blistering air assaults my skin with gale force. My cheeks tingle, the tiny hairs inside of my nose morphing into icicles within seconds of immersing myself in the frigid cold. I ignore it all. I need to get away from this building.

I also need some vodka, but first things first.

My feet shuffle down Main Street, in the direction of the short, wooden pier. It’s not far, the wind picking up speed with each step I take closer to the lake. I don’t want to go, but my body is acting of its own accord right now. The shops become fewer and farther between, the street less populated. I clutch my arms around myself, teeth chattering. But I need to go. I need to remember. Then, I need to forget it all and get the hell on with my life. Without Jack. Without Cringle Cove. With new hopes and dreams for a future yet to be realized.

Closure. That’s what I need. Turns out my body is smarter than my brain.

“It’s a promise ring.”

I peer at the tiny diamond flanked on both sides by sparkling sapphires, my heart skipping like a five-year-old on Christmas morning. “What exactly are you promising, Jack?”

He grins, the dimple in his left cheek deepening. “That you’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted, and that I’ll be the one to give it to you.”

“Ha! What a fucking sham!” I bend down to grab a rock that isn’t dusted with snow and hurl it into the lake. It lands with a loud thud as the thin ice around it shatters. Within seconds, the ice cracks and it plunges to the bottom to rest in a deep freeze.

Just like my heart when I listened to that damn voicemail.

My family conspired against me and Jack. Sure, they meant well, but what if they were wrong? What if he was going to come back and fulfill his promise?

I guess I’ll never really know.

I press my fingertips against my temples and sink onto the weathered wood on the pier. Tears sting my eyes. Memories of the past five years flash across my mind. Valedictorian of my high school class. Stanford graduate. Prestigious Phi Beta Kappa award winner. Coveted Google internship. And now my life in Palo Alto…upscale apartment, a shoe collection that any fashionista alive would die for, fat bank account. I worked my ass off and now I can write my own ticket, anywhere I want to go.

The problem is, my future and the ticket had already been written, and I loved the destination.

Then it was torn up without my knowledge or consent.

I could have done everything I’d ever wanted with Jack.

But he decided he had his own future to write.

“Do you still have it?”

I gasp, spinning around on the heel of my Ugg shearling boot. I wish the rest of me was dressed in that Arctic-inspired fur.

“Do you?” Jack slowly unbuttons his coat, inching closer to me.

I snort, turning my back toward him. “Why would I have kept it? A promise ring doesn’t mean anything once the actual promise is broken, Jack. Maybe you should have educated yourself about the meaning of a promise ring before you gave it to me.”

“I knew what it meant, Cam.”

I spin back around, my eyes wide. “Oh? And did you realize what it would do to me when you reneged on that bullshit promise, Jack?”

He runs a hand through his dark, wind-blown hair. “I didn’t come out here to beg for your forgiveness. I don’t expect it would be that easy.”

“Good fucking thing for that!” I snap.

“Tessa should never have made that call.” His eyes cloud over and he slips off his coat, handing it to me. “Here, put this on before that snarl on your face freezes solid.”

I eye the coat, fighting the urge to grab it, to breathe in his delicious scent, and snuggle into it, just like I always did when we were younger and never dressed for the weather. “I don’t want anything from you. Not now, not ever.” Those words cut deep, tearing open old wounds that are impossible to fully heal. And God, the ache in my heart…who knew emptiness could feel so heavy?

“It was wrong of me to let you go like that.”

Rage bubbles in my chest, and I let it all erupt from the depths of my soul. It had been bottled up for way too long, and now, even if I wanted to pull back, the flood gates have been flung open and everything is rushing forth like a tsunami. I want to see him pummeled by my words, my anger, and my disgust.

“You are a fucking liar! You promised me a perfect life, one with you by my side! You told me we could get through anything, that this assignment in London was a little blip on our screen, that you’d never let me go!” I close the space between us, getting in close, so close the scent of his cologne wafts under my nose.

That familiar and intoxicating scent doesn’t have the same effect on me now. It makes my stomach roll and clench. My spine stiffens, my throat clogged by a lump the size of a golf ball. A hard thud in my chest intensifies with each word spewed, and short, sharp gasps of air slice away at my lungs.

None of it silences me.

I still feel. I never stopped feeling.

But there’s a damn fine line between love and hate, and right now I’m not entirely sure which side my heart is on.

“Even if you thought for a split second that I’d cheat on you with Drew, how could you never have confronted me about it? You really believed I’d do something like that to you? To us? And after everything we shared, you just cut me out of your life.” I shake my head, trying to cling tight to the anger, but disappointment creeps into my voice. “I guess we didn’t know each other at all.”

“Tessa—"

“What Tessa did was wrong. I’m a big girl, and fully capable of making my own life decisions. It wasn’t her place to get involved. And even though I’m so angry at her for what she did, please don’t blame her for your fuck-up, okay?”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Jack’s bright green eyes darken, suffocating me with sadness. “She was worried about you. I don’t blame her for making that call. She had your best interests at heart, and she gave me a pretty harsh wake-up call. I think I was trying so hard to break free from my own past that I forgot about your future. It wasn’t fair of me to keep you grounded because I was chasing my dreams. You needed to do the same. If you stayed here, waiting around for me without any regard for your own dreams, you would have resented me.”

“Were you afraid of that, Jack? Did you think you’d resent me if you didn’t go to London?” I whisper, tears pooling in my eyes.

“No,” he murmurs. “I’d never resent you, Cam. That’s not why I went to London.” He lets out a deep sigh and puts his hands on my shoulders. “I ended up leaving you, just like she did to me. I did the same thing I vowed I’d never do.”

His grip sends a jolt of electricity zipping through me. It electrifies every cell in my body, momentarily frying my sensibilities. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you trying to tell me about some other woman jilting you? Jack, for Christ’s sake!”

He shakes his head, the pain reflected in his eyes clenching my heart. “It’s not what you think. I’m talking about my mother.”

“But your mother died…years ago.” I think the cold has sufficiently frozen my ability to conjure up a single, sane thought. “Why are you bringing her up, now of all times?”

“She didn’t die, Cam.” He drops his hands from my shoulders and steps back, sweeping a hand through his hair. “She left my dad. Left our family. It all happened years ago, before we moved here. I told everyone she died because it was easier than facing the truth every time someone asked.”

This time, when he offers the coat, I take it. I slide my arms into the thick, warm fabric, my fingers desperate to button myself farther into his warmth. A tiny part of me would much prefer his arms. Damn, I’m weak…much weaker than I thought I’d ever be. “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me something like that.” Again, my earlier words come back to haunt me.

I guess we didn’t know each other that well after all.

My teeth clatter together as I shift my weight in the frigid air. I came out here to put my past to rest, once and for all, and here I am, reliving those moments. I don’t want to, but maybe it’s what I need to do to move on with my life. “Tell me, Jack. Tell me why your mom left. Tell me why you didn’t trust me enough to let me in on the truth all of those years ago.” I gulp down an icy cold breath, my eyes tearing from the gusty winds picking up speed around us. It’s almost as if they know the storm brewing in my soul, the one that’s lain dormant, the one I’m about to unleash.

“Come with me,” he says, gripping my hand in his. How is it so warm? Isn’t he standing in the same freezing cold air? Maybe he doesn’t have ice flowing through his veins after all. I let him guide me toward the boathouse set behind the pier. I remember the endless nights we’d spent snuggled together in there, exchanging secrets, making promises, exploring each other’s bodies in the seclusion of our own little love nest.

I don’t want to go back there. I can’t!

But still I follow him. God, I really would follow this man everywhere. If he wanted to dive down and retrieve the rock I’d pelted into the lake, I’d jump in right after him. I hate myself for it, but I need to know the truth. Maybe it’ll help me move on. Maybe it’ll make things worse. Either way, I need to hear him speak the words in order to make sense of these conflicting emotions.

He grasps the door of the boathouse and pulls it open. A musty, mildew smell assaults my nostrils once we step inside. But at least it’s warmer and protected from the elements.

Images plaster every corner of my mind as I breathe in the stale air. In the summertime, the windows would remain open, allowing the crisp air to flow through the enclosure. I walk around the dark wood house, flexing my fingers, allowing the blood to circulate. Once I can feel them again, I trace them over a carving of our initials in one hidden corner. I smile, recalling the night Jack had carved them.

It was the night we’d first made love. Right after homecoming. It was the best night of my life, one my heart will never let me forget. Back then, I thought our life together would be as permanent as those etchings.

I turn toward Jack.

“Do you remember that night?”

With a nod, my eyes return to the carving. “I tried with everything in me to forget it, but yeah, I do. I loved that night. I loved you, Jack. I couldn’t figure out how I’d been so very wrong about you. I still don’t.”

“I loved you, too.” He inches closer to me, then pauses. “That’s why I tried to protect you. From myself. From my secrets.”

“We weren’t supposed to have secrets from each other,” I whisper. “You broke promises because of those secrets. What could have been so important that you’d have to keep it from me?”

“My dad was an alcoholic. A dangerous one, Cam. He’s why my mother left. After years of being the target for his rage when he’d get fired from the bullshit jobs he’d had as I was growing up, or when dinner wasn’t ready when he got home, or when the trash hadn’t been taken out, or when the television remote was buried under magazines and he couldn’t find it within seconds of falling onto the couch. He burned her with cigarettes. He broke her arm. He beat her within an inch of her life. That was the final straw. One day, I got home from school and there was a note on the counter.” Jack’s voice cracks and he rubs the back of his neck, twisting it from side to side, as though his shoulders are finally free of the burden he’s been carrying for so long.

“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Jack, I don’t…”

“She left me with that monster,” he mumbles, interrupting me. “She wrote that she loved me in the note, but still, she walked away from me. I watched my father almost kill her time and time again, and then she left her own son to fend for himself with that animal as his caretaker. That’s why we moved. To start over in a new place, where nobody knew anything. I kept his secrets, counting the minutes until I could get away from him and escape forever.” His lips curl into a small smile. “But you changed all of that. I stayed for as long as I did because of you. Leaving wasn’t an option anymore.”

“What changed? Why did you take that assignment?”

“Because I wanted to give you the world, Cam. And I knew that staying here, I’d be limited in how much that could be. Especially since…” His voice trails off for a moment. “…since my father had lost another job and started having run-ins with the cops because of his violent behavior. I’d had to bail him out of jail at one point, and it took me months to make back the bail money. I had to get out of here. I wasn’t about to sacrifice my future with you for him after every miserable thing he’d done to me and my mother over the years. Payback is what he called it. I owed him for all the times he’d provided for me, his own damn son.”

“I would have gone with you! Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

“Do you know how hard it was for me to deal with that? How much it killed me to keep that from you? But I had to protect you. I wanted to make a life for us far away from here. London would never be far enough from him, but it killed me every day I was away from you. And I couldn’t take you away, Cam. You had to finish school and you wanted Stanford for as long as I’d known you. I figured I’d complete the assignment, and then we’d head out to California together.”

“But you stayed.”

“I knew you’d never have gone to California if you were waiting around for me. And the assignment turned into something bigger, something that would have been better for us. When Tessa called, it was a no-brainer. You needed to go to Stanford. I needed to let you go. And when I thought you wanted Prentice…”

“It made your decision that much easier.” I tug a strand of my hair and stare out the window at the snowflakes falling from the gray sky.

“Look, what I told Tessa before was true. I want to make things right with you, Cam. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I hope you understand why. You didn’t deserve it, and I should have handled it differently. I know it’s a lot to take in, but if there’s any chance at all…if you can find it in your heart to let me make it up to you…it’s all I want.”

My head jerked toward him, eyes narrowing at the hope in his eyes. “I’m sorry for everything you went through. I really am. I can’t imagine the pain and the rejection and the disappointment you had to suffer. I would have helped you through it. You never had to deal with any of it alone. We were supposed to be a team. We vowed to take care of one another, always. I promised that to you, remember? I just wish to God you’d have told me all of this before…before…” The gaggle of tears caught in my throat muffles my next words, but it’s only a matter of time before they spill from my lips. I’ve waited too long to say them, and nothing he can tell me right now will keep them buried for a second longer.

“Before what?”

I shrug out of his coat and toss it to him before pulling open the creaky boathouse door. A shudder quakes my shoulders as the cold wind whips around me. “Before it was too late for us. Goodbye, Jack.”