She paused a moment, considering that. He had a good point. How many times had she held her tongue and not rocked the boat? How many times had she been overlooked and dismissed out of hand because she didn’t express her wants and needs? Her entire life had been spent keeping the peace.
She’d suppressed her own wants and needs to avoid conflict, but the reality was, conflict could not be avoided. You had to deal with it or it just festered inside you until one day you snapped and scissored a quilt to scraps. Maybe it was time to just start doing what she needed to do.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay that you don’t know.”
“I bet you’re relieved,” she said.
“Why is that?”
“You don’t have to pretend to be my fiancé anymore.”
“Actually,” he said. “I kind of liked being your intended.”
“Even now?”
His eyes lit up. “Now even more than ever.”
“You’re warped, Straus.”
“Nah, I’m human, just like you.”
Gia chuffed out her breath. “What now?”
“Between you and your sisters?” His voice lowered along with his eyelashes. “Or between you and me?”
She meant between her and her sisters, but the way he was looking at her jumbled her head. “We’re still friends, right?”
“Gia,” he said. “No matter what happens, I will always be your friend.”
“Even if you marry someone else?”
He touched her wrist. “Are you okay?”
“No, no, I’m not.” She hauled in a deep, shuddering breath. “I’ve ruined it all.”
“Have you really?” he asked in a calm, steady voice. Mike’s voice normally soothed her, but right now his composure irritated Gia. He wasn’t taking her seriously.
“Yes.”
“Or did you just free yourself from everyone else’s expectations?”
Had she? Letting go of pleasing people felt as terrible as she feared it would. “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like being angry.”
“It’s normal. Human. Are you saying you don’t like being human?”
“When you put it that way . . .” She interlaced her fingers and stared down at her palms. Saw the engagement ring on the third finger of her left hand.
“It’s not your job to keep everyone happy, Gia. It’s an impossible task you’ve set for yourself.”
“I know,” she mumbled, twisting the ring back and forth, working it up the length of her finger. It was time to do what she’d come here to do. Give him back his ring. End this. Set him free from the sham.
He put his hand over hers.
She looked up into his intense gaze.
“About last night . . .”
“Yes?” Gia moistened her lips.
He looked so sexy, with that adorable cowlick sticking up in the back. He wore cargo shorts and a thin cotton T-shirt that showed off his muscular biceps and layered eight-pack abs beneath. The shirt read: HAPPINESS IS HANDMADE.
She remembered exactly what his body felt like beneath her palms, and instantly sweat popped out on her brow.
He smiled at her, warm and sincere. “It changed me. You changed me.”
His words churned something inside of her. Her chest tightened, and she couldn’t draw in a full breath. “Mike.”
“Gia, please don’t tell me that you aren’t feeling some pretty powerful things too. That we aren’t working on something that has nothing to do with your sisters and that quilt or our pretend engagement.”
“I am feeling some things. Too many things. That’s the problem. It’s too much, too soon.”
“There’s no rush, Gia. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Maybe I am,” she said, sounding a bit hysterical to her own ears. “I might be going somewhere. You said yourself you were a Moonglow Cove man and wouldn’t leave, not even for the woman you loved.”
“No, what I said was, that’s how I knew Cassandra wasn’t the One. If I wasn’t willing to leave Moonglow Cove for her, then there was a problem.”
“You’d leave Moonglow Cove for me?”
“I would.”
She sucked in her breath, and her entire body shook, processing what he’d said. Felt fear gnaw down into her bones. But along with the fear, she felt another emotion. Something she didn’t want to admit.
Every time he looked at her with those kind, patient blue eyes, she felt comforted by him the way she’d been comforted by that blanket she’d brought with her to Grammy’s house all those years ago.
He represented stability at a time she’d long ago stopped believing in it.
Mike sat beside her, holding her hand, her dear family friend, but now he was so much more than that. Or could be if she didn’t run away, terrified.
He stared deeply into her eyes, fusing his gaze to hers. “Gia,” he said. “There’s something