Page 192 of Fighting the Pull

He nodded.

I opened the baby gate, closed it behind me and warned, “Don’t follow me.”

He didn’t follow me.

I got dressed. I packed a bag. I called my dad.

Then I gathered everything I had before I walked back downstairs.

A wasted effort.

Paul was hanging out by the elevators.

Hale was gone.

I asked Paul to help me crate the cats. He helped (and while he did, I didn’t allow myself to process the look on his face either), and he carried the crates while I shouldered my bag.

God bless him, he’d parked at the loading dock so there were no paparazzi to see my shameful exit.

We loaded up, I got in the back with my cats, and I was pretty damned proud of myself I held it together through Manhattan, over the bridge, to Dad’s.

Dad helped us get the cats in.

He called our neighbor to ask if she’d do the huge favor of running out to get some litter and trays.

He then made me coffee and sat down beside me at the kitchen table while I drank it.

I did this stoically.

It was when Frosty jumped into my lap that I lost it.

And with Frosty sticking close, and Dad’s arms going tight around me, I cried like a baby.

CHAPTER26

NEVER DIE

Hale

Three days later…

They were shit at an intervention.

He knew they were there before he let himself in. Even though there was a four-car garage with only his Jeep in one, they hadn’t bothered to hide their vehicles.

It seemed like they’d lit every light in the house, so he could easily see Duncan standing at the windows, turning his way from watching the ocean, Genny sitting on a couch, a glass of rosé in her hand, staring at Hale as he walked in, Tom sitting in a chair, holding a highball of bourbon, swiveling his chair around to face Hale when he arrived.

Looking at them, he knew this was Tom’s idea, Genny was all in, and Duncan didn’t agree, but he was there all the same.

The box his dad left him was sitting on the coffee table.

Next to it was the double frame from the study, opened and pointed his way.

He stopped, dropped his bag, and before anyone said anything, he decreed, “We’re not doing this.”

“You broke up with her after she received forty-five stitches because of your stalker,” Tom retorted.

His neck was already so tight, he thought his head would snap off, but it didn’t matter.

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