“When are you coming back to Seaside?” Emma asks. “Keegan and I were hoping you could do our engagement pictures, and my friend Becky is pregnant and looking for someone to do artful maternity pictures.”

Leave it to Emma to make me feel like my business is about more than knowing how to get men off. What sucks is I really want to do it, but I’m not sure I can handle going back to Seaside right now. “I’m not there anymore, Em.”

“What? What about Mason? Please don’t tell me you’re still pretending you’re not in love with him.”

“I think we broke up.”

The phone is muffled, and I hear her tell someone else, “Bailey and Mason broke up.” Then she chirps, “Keegan, I wasn’t done talking to her.”

“What did he do?” Keegan asks. “Tell me now so I can go beat him up. You’re the best thing he ever had.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I really don’t want to tell my friends the truth about what I did, but it’ll get back to them one way or another, and it’ll be better coming from me. At least, I think it will. “His dad gave me money back in college in exchange for my promise to never let my relationship with Mason become anything serious.” I wait for his outrage, but he’s silent. “I shouldn’t have taken it, but I needed it, so I did.”

“That’s shit,” he says. “Bailey, I’m so sorry he did that to you.”

Why does his kindness hurt so much? “I’m not the one who deserves the apology here.”

“But you do.” He sighs. “I grew up poor too, remember? I get it. If you needed the money and he offered it, what were you supposed to do?”

“It’s not that simple.” I don’t want to tell him about Mason giving Nic money. It doesn’t feel right. “His parents will always be his parents, and if Mason and I want to be together, we’d always have that tension. It’s complicated.”

Keegan exhales loudly, his exasperation echoing through the phone.

“It doesn’t have to be complicated at all.” Those words don’t come from Keegan but from the man standing in the middle of Mia’s living room.

I put my hand over my mouth.

Mason sinks to his haunches and takes the phone from my hand. “She’s gonna have to call you back,” he says. He smiles as Keegan says something, then says, “Of course I did . . . Yeah . . . Shut up, Keegan, I’m working on it.” He taps the screen to end the call then tosses the phone onto the couch.

Mia appears behind Mason, her purse slung over her shoulder. She nods toward the door. “I’m gonna step out for a bit. Call if you need me.”

I swallow and nod but don’t take my eyes from Mason as Mia walks away and the door clicks closed behind her.

“You said it’s complicated, but there’s nothing complicated about the way I feel for you. The other crap is messy, but it doesn’t change the fact that nothing hurts as much as watching you walk away.”

I want to jump into his arms, and I want to tell him to leave.

I want to listen to every word he has to say, and I want to refuse.

“I should never have offered Nic money to stay away from you.” He sits in front of me on the coffee table and leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “I didn’t intend to, but in the end, I saw an opportunity to keep you safe from his influence, and I took it.”

“He was a son of a bitch,” I say, my eyes filling with tears all over again. “He promised me he wouldn’t deal anymore.” I shake my head. “I think I knew and just didn’t want to admit it to myself. I didn’t want to believe that I’d sold my soul for nothing. I’m just as bad as Lindy. I’m worse.”

“But you’re not, Bailey.” He shakes his head. “She didn’t need the money, and she didn’t just take a check. She took my child. You did what you believed you had to do. You were in an impossible position and you needed the money. As much as it hurts, I understand.” He reaches for my hand and skims his fingertips across my knuckles, then lifts his eyes to mine. “Come home.”

“I promised myself I’d never take your money, and I already have. Through your parents, through your money to Nic, through my student loans . . .”

“I don’t care about the money. I only care about you, but I get it. I understand how it feels dirty to you, like I bought you.” He closes his eyes, and I steal the moment to study his perfect face—the angle of his cheekbones, the firm cut of his jaw, his soft lips. “Bailey, I don’t want to buy your love any more than you want to be bought. I want to wake up every day and know you’re there because you want to be. We’ve been through hell to be together. People don’t do this shit for money. It sucks too much.”

I laugh and grab his hand. “It totally sucks.”

“Can we kiss and make up yet?”

“What about your dad?”

“I don’t want to kiss him,” he says. I laugh, and that makes him grin, but his smile falls away as he shrugs. “Whether you’re in my life or not, my father and I will have a difficult relationship. He’s my father, but he’s not my family.”

I frown. “What makes someone your family, then?”

“Family is the foundation of your life. They’re who you go home to, who you need when you have a bad day, and who you can forgive for anything.” He slides a hand into my hair and looks into my eyes. “For me, that’s always been you.”

“And the Gators win!” the announcer calls, and Mia and I dance around Mason’s living room—not just in celebration of the win but in celebration of Mason finally getting the play time he deserves. I’ve been back in Seaside for two weeks and this is the second game Mason’s been a starter again. Rumor has it that Bill was sick of losing and finally did what he should have been doing all along—told the coaches to play whomever they thought could win the game.

Since both of our husbands are traveling this weekend, Mia flew down to spend the weekend with me. “This calls for wine,” I say, heading to the kitchen before I stop myself and turn back to her. “Unless you’re pregnant?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I’m not and we aren’t trying yet. But it is nice to know that if we had a surprise we would both be okay with it.”

“Absolutely. I get that.”

She joins me in the kitchen. While I get the wine, she pulls two glasses from the cabinet. “Both when Mom moved away and when Nic died, the loss just came so suddenly that sometimes I have to remind myself that I don’t need to rush my life with Arrow, and even if I wanted to, it wouldn’t bring Nic back.”

My hand shakes as I pour the wine. She just gave me the opening I need, but I’m so nervous. “Do you remember the summer in high school when my sister adopted a new baby and I came down to help her?” I study Mia’s face as I ask her. I feel as if I’ve been holding my breath all day.

“You mean when you blew off the first two weeks of school because you were having too much fun in Florida?” She nods but she’s smiling. “I remember.”

I bite my lip. “I wasn’t just coming down to help her. I was coming down because I had to be here.” I pull up a picture of Faith on my phone and hand it to Mia. “That’s Faith. She turned six this summer.”

Mia’s eyes widen as she looks at the screen. I wonder if she sees what no one else knows to look for—Nic’s kind eyes, Mia’s heart-shaped hairline, a smile that is just like mine. “She’s beautiful.”

She doesn’t suspect anything, and guilt has my heart in a vise. She wouldn’t suspect anything because she’s my best friend, and she wouldn’t expect me to keep such a big secret. “She’s Nic’s.”

Mia tears her eyes from the screen to look at me, and they’re full of questions.

“She’s mine and Nic’s.” A dozen emotions cross over Mia’s face, and I hold my breath, waiting to see which will stay.

“I have a niece?”

I nod. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry I never told you. I was so scared. And Sarah really is very private. Her life fell apart when her husband left, and I think maybe part of her wondered if she had any right to Faith after that. She’d been so self-righteous about raising her, because she had this great life to give my little girl. And then that all fell apart, and she was only getting by with my help. It’s not like I was trying to take Faith back, but maybe subconsciously she was always worried I might want to. And who wouldn’t? This kid’s amazing.”

Mia’s hand shakes. Her fingers hover over the screen as if she wants to touch it but is afraid Faith might disappear if she dares.

“I want you to meet her.”

Her eyes lift to mine. “Really?”

“I got the okay from Sarah. She doesn’t want Faith to know you’re her daddy’s sister—not yet—but if you’re okay with just being Aunt Bailey’s friend, we can go meet her today.”

“Thank you, Bailey.” She bites her bottom lip and tears spill onto her cheeks. “Thank you so much.”

I shake my head. “What are you thanking me for? I kept this from you, and that wasn’t right.”

She squeezes my hand. “Thank you for giving me my brother back. In a way.”

I wrap my arms around her and hug her so tightly, saying a silent prayer of thanks for having a friend like her, even if I never did anything to deserve her.