“Look, Griffin, I really like you. It’s been fun. But this.” She motions between us, eyes never meeting mine. “It always had an expiration date. You were always going back to New York, and I was always going off to the next place.”

“We were making a plan,” I remind her.

“Well, now there’s a wrench in it, the kind you’re responsible for, for at least a couple of decades, if you’re lucky. You can’t be with me if you’ve having a baby with someone else, least of all someone you were engaged to.”

I want to fight her on this. I want to tell her that in my head I had her working at Mills Hotels, not directly under me because I know there’s no way she’d tolerate that, but still, she’d be working for my family. And then she’d still be close, and I’d find a way for her to come with me on every single trip out of the country. We’d see the world together. But I’m not stupid. I know if I say any of this to her, she’s going to freak out. And she would have every right to.

“A lot could happen between now and the baby being born.” Jesus. I sound like an idiot.

She lifts her eyes, and her expression breaks my stupid fucking heart. It’s full of pain, disbelief, uncertainty. “You’re right. A lot could happen. That woman is carrying a life inside her, and you’re fifty percent responsible for that happening even if you don’t want to be. You don’t get to be selfish about this, Griffin. Your attention needs to be on the mother of your child. It doesn’t matter how much I like you, or if you think I make you happy and she doesn’t. None of that matters anymore. I can’t get in the way of this. I won’t be the reason a kid grows up in a broken home. You have to give this a fair shot, and I refuse to be the reason you don’t.” She brushes past me and heads down the hall to the door.

I know once I leave, it’s truly the end. She’ll never want to see me again. She’s only twenty-two. She’ll bounce back. In a month, she’ll be somewhere across the ocean, and some guy who isn’t me will get to fall in love with her. And I’ll be preparing to raise a baby with someone I don’t love. “Cosy, please—”

Her head bows, her raven hair covering her face for a few seconds before she finally looks up at me, eyes liquid and so torn. “Please, Griffin, just let me go. Please tell me goodbye. Please say I’m right and you understand.”

I want to tell her she’s not right, that I need her, that I’ll find a way out of this. But I can’t say any of those things with certainty. Instead of giving her what she wants, I force my way into her personal space, trapping her between the door and my body. I take her face in my hands. “Tell me you don’t feel what I feel.”

She stares at my mouth, eyes swimming with pain that makes my chest ache. “What I feel is irrelevant, Griffin.” She closes her eyes, refusing to look at me as I memorize her perfect, beautiful face, features etched through with anguish I put there.

Even though I shouldn’t, I press my lips against hers—unyielding and unforgiving. It’s not how I want this to end. “Cosy.”

The sound that comes out of her is pure agony, but her lips part, and I sweep inside her mouth. She latches onto my wrists for the briefest moment before her fingers slide into my hair and grab on. We kiss until we’re breathless, and she finally pushes away.

I try to hold her to me. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Her body is rigid, and her voice is tired. “You have to go now, Griffin.”

She unlocks her door with shaking hands. Opening it, she tips her chin up and lifts her azure gaze. All that pain is locked away, and in its place is sad resolve. She presses her fingers to her lips and then taps them over my chest. “Please do the right thing.” Leave me alone. Don’t call. Don’t torment me.

“I’ll try.”

“Promise.”

I exhale slowly as I step into the hall, trying to find a way to alleviate the weight on my chest, but the next words I utter are like a gavel, sentencing my heart to a lifetime of emptiness. “I’ll do the right thing.”Chapter Eighteen: Misery Loves Coolers and CristalCosy

So that saying that misery loves company is a load of garbage. Misery and loneliness go hand in hand, though. I might be surrounded by people, but I feel like I’m alone on an island called Heartbreak Hell and my SOS is never going to be seen.