God, the way they’d looked at him. None of the respect afforded to the captain of a boat. He’d been an idiot to think they could ever see him in a new light. They’d treated him like the scum of the earth for even breathing the same air as Hannah, let alone being in a relationship with her. Fox could only imagine Hannah getting the same talk from her sister, their mutual friends, everyone in her life—and the idea made him nauseous, a dagger slipping through his ribs and twisting.
His worst nightmare was coming to fruition. Even earlier than expected.
But he could stop it now. Before it got worse for Hannah. Before she moved all the way to Westport and realized what a mistake she’d made.
Before she was forced to make this hard decision.
No, he’d make it for them both, even if it killed him.
There was an invisible match in his hand, lit and ready. He didn’t seem to have much choice but to douse the best thing in his life in kerosene and toss the matchstick right on top.
Chapter Twenty-Three
An hour later, Fox stood in the shadows, leaning against the fish-and-chips shop across the street from Cross and Daughters. He should have stayed home. He shouldn’t be out here trying to catch a glimpse of Hannah through the front window, his very existence seeming to hinge on just seeing her. At least one more time before he explained that he’d been wrong. Wrong to even consider that he could be good for her.
Someone walked out of the bar to light up a smoke, and in that brief second the door was open, Hannah’s laughter drifted out through the opening. His body jolted off the wall, muscles tightening like bolts.
All right, look, he was still responsible for her safety until she went back to Los Angeles, so he’d just . . . make sure she got home okay.
Was he insane? If he had one ounce of self-preservation running in his blood, he’d have gone back to his apartment and changed the locks. Drunk a fifth of whiskey, blacked out, and woken up when she’d gone.
What had he done instead?
With the words of Sanders and Deke ringing in his head, he’d gone through the motions of a shower. Put on cologne. She was in town, and there was no earthly way he could stay away. Him needing to be near Hannah was just a fact of life. But once he saw her, he had to do the right thing.
Get your head in the game.
You are breaking it off with her.
A screwdriver slid into his gut at the thought of that. Breaking it off. It sounded so harsh, when his actions were the opposite of harsh. He was preventing her from making a mistake by wasting her time on him. Signing herself up for the same lack of respect that had become a normal part of his life. He couldn’t let her move a thousand miles to be with someone who people—people who knew him—assumed would chew her up and spit her out. If his own crew thought so little of him, what would the whole town think? Her family?
So go in there and tell her.
He would . . . soon.
He’d gotten on the boat Wednesday morning on an upswing of hope. During the trip, the captain’s wheel felt good sliding through his hands, the grain rasping against his palms. For a brief moment in time, the dreams of his youth had reappeared and sunk their hooks in, but that feeling was long gone right now. With Hannah believing in him, Fox thought he could earn the same honor from the men of the Della Ray, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. He was stuck in this place of no forward movement, boxed in by his reputation, and he wouldn’t get her caught there alongside him. No fucking way.
Fox paced a few steps on the sidewalk, still unable to see Hannah through the window. Maybe he’d go to Blow the Man Down, have a drink to settle his nerves, and come back. He started walking in that direction—and that’s when he saw her.
Standing at the bar inside Cross and Daughters.
First, he saw her face, and his heart dropped into his stomach, a ripe tomato hurtling down a hundred-foot well and splattering at the bottom. God. God, she was beautiful. Hair down, curling in places he’d never seen it curled before.
He knew that expression on her face well, that mixture of earnestness and distraction, because she probably couldn’t help listening to the music, repeating the lyrics in her head, the words derailing the course of whatever conversation she was having. In this case, a conversation with a man.
Not Sergei, but an attractive, actor-looking type.
Fox ran his tongue along the front of his teeth, his throat drying up.
Don’t you dare be jealous when you’re about to end things. She’d be back in LA soon talking to millions of men. There would probably be a whole herd of them waiting on the highway off-ramp, full of the right words and good intentions and—
And that’s when he noticed the little turquoise dress.
“Ah, Jesus,” he muttered, changing directions again. Moving at a much quicker pace this time. Even before he walked through the door of the bar, Fox wanted a lot more than a closer look. He’d spent five lonely nights on the ship with a hard-on, his dick stiff and aching for Hannah and Hannah only. So when he started to weave through the crowd, focused solely on her, his hands were already itching, and that was not a good sign. If this hard discussion was going to be successful, those hands needed to stay off her.
Be strong.
She turned, and their eyes met—and thank God the music was loud, because he made a sound midway between agony and relief. There she was. Safe and alive. Gorgeous and all-knowing and merciful and perfect. Any man with half a brain in his head would get down on his knees and crawl toward her, but he . . . couldn’t be that man. It was especially hard to acknowledge that when her face brightened, the hazel color of her eyes deepening to a mossy copper, that heart-shaped mouth spreading into a smile.
“Fox. You’re back.”
“Yeah,” he managed, sounding like a garrote was tightening around his throat. And it was a good thing Piper was behind the bar, or he might have kissed Hannah then and there. Two seconds in her presence, and he almost ruined his plans. Would have been worth it, though. “How . . . are you?”
A glimmer of sadness ran a lap around her face—because he hadn’t kissed her?—and she set her drink down on the bar. “Good. I’m fine.” Why did she seem to be measuring her breaths so carefully? Was something wrong? “Fox, this is Christian.” She gestured to the man to his right. “He’s the lead actor in the film. He’s an absolute nightmare.”
“She speaks the truth,” purred the actor through his teeth, holding out a hand to Fox. “And you must be the one taking her away from us.”
Just when Fox thought his stomach couldn’t knot any tighter, it twisted into a pretzel. She’d already made plans. She’d made plans that would make it easier for them to be together. With Hannah standing in front of him, so familiar and sweet and soft, the word “plans” didn’t sound quite as daunting. It was when they were apart that he started to doubt his ability to execute any kind of plan. It was the doubt of others that shook him.
The leather cuff around his wrist turned into molten metal, branding his skin.
“Oh. No,” Hannah rushed to say, her face rapidly turning pink. “I mean, I . . . I’m leaving the production company. But that’s a decision that I made . . . for me. Separate from Fox. Or anything.”
Until that news came out of her mouth, Fox hadn’t truly processed the weight of it. What it meant for her. “You quit your job?”