Chapter 29
I’ve found my zen in the weirdest possible place: brushing a white mare named Luna who probably has better hair than I ever did. The rhythmic motion of the brush against her coat is like meditation for people who are too fucked up for actual meditation.
Martha and Henry—the couple who own this slice of pastoral paradise—offered me work without asking why I looked like I’d been hit by a truck driven by my own bad decisions.
They seem to understand that sometimes people need to disappear into hay bales and horse shit until they remember how to be human again.
Turns out I don’t miss the stage lights or camera flashes or the constant buzz of industry networking that used to make me feel important.
What I miss is being seen. Really seen. Not the way those photographers caught me through their stalker lenses, but the way Liam’s eyes used to find mine across crowded rooms like I was the only person worth looking at.
The way Asher looked at me like I was something precious he wanted to protect from the world’s general shittiness. The way Finn saw through my professional bullshit to the woman underneath who just wanted to belong somewhere.
But that was before.
Before the photos, before the public humiliation, before Adelyn’s cruel laughter turned my life into a cautionary tale about what happens when you forget your place.
I’m working the brush along Luna’s neck, lost in the simple satisfaction of making something beautiful clean, when my fragile peace gets obliterated like a house of cards in a hurricane.
Three figures approach from across the field, and even at a distance, my traitorous heart recognizes them with the inevitability of gravity pulling you off a cliff.
My breath catches, panic flooding my system like ice water in my veins.
Every survival instinct I’ve developed over the past two weeks is screaming at me to run, hide, dig a hole and live underground like some kind of corporate mole person.
But my body doesn’t move. Because apparently, even after everything, they’re still magnetic north and I’m still a broken compass that can’t find any other direction.
“Jasmine.” Leo’s voice cuts through my spiral, sharp with warning. He must’ve seen them too.
Before I can even begin to process what their presence here means—how they found me, why they came, whether I’m about to get served with legal papers or worse—Leo explodes out of the barn like a protective missile programmed for maximum destruction.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?!” he yells, storming across the yard with fists clenched and rage radiating from every inch of his frame. “You have the goddamn audacity to show your faces after what you did to my sister? You fucking ruined her!”
“Leo—” I try to cut in, caught between shock at seeing them and alarm at my brother’s nuclear-level fury.
But Leo’s beyond listening. He positions himself between me and them like a human shield, all five-foot-nine of righteous anger bristling like an angry cat.
“You want to know what I’ve been watching for the past two weeks?” he continues, voice cracking with emotion. “My sister crying herself to sleep every night. Jumping at every sound because she thinks paparazzi are going to leap out of fucking bushes. Too ashamed to even go to town for groceries because she’s convinced everyone’s staring at her like she’s some kind of carnival freak.”
Liam steps forward, hands raised in what looks like a peaceful gesture but somehow manages to convey authority even while trying to de-escalate.
“We didn’t come here to fight, Leo. We just want to talk to Jasmine.”
Leo scoffs with the kind of bitter sound that could strip paint.
“Talk? That’s fucking rich. You made her cry in front of the entire world, turned her into internet tabloid fodder, destroyed her reputation, and now you want to chat?”
“It wasn’t us,” Asher says quietly, those steel-gray eyes fixed on me instead of Leo. “It was never us.”
“Bullshit.” Leo spits the word like it tastes toxic. “You think I don’t know how this works? Rich, powerful men using women and then throwing them away when the PR gets inconvenient?”
I can see this situation spiraling toward violence, can feel the tension ratcheting higher with each word. Luna shifts nervously beside me, picking up on the human drama unfolding in her usually peaceful space.
Even the horse knows this is about to get ugly.
“Leo,” I say gently, stepping away from the stall and walking toward my brother with deliberate calm. “Let me handle this.”
He turns to me, face flushed with anger and something deeper—hurt on my behalf that makes my chest tight with emotions I’m not ready to name.
“You don’t owe them shit, Jas. Not after what they put you through.”
“I know,” I reply softly, reaching out to touch his arm. “But I need to hear what they came here to say. For me, not for them.”
Leo’s jaw works silently, protective instincts warring with respect for my autonomy.
After a long moment that feels like waiting for test results, he steps back reluctantly, though his glare could melt steel.
“Ten minutes,” he says flatly, directing his words at the brothers. “Then you get the hell off this property and leave her alone.”
I turn to face them, seeing them clearly for the first time since that disastrous press conference.
They look like they’ve been through their own personal apocalypse—exhausted, haunted in a way that speaks of sleepless nights and desperate searching.
Liam’s usually perfect hair is disheveled. Asher’s clothes are wrinkled like he’s been sleeping in them. Finn’s trademark smile is completely AWOL.
They look almost as broken as I feel, which is either reassuring or terrifying. I haven’t decided yet.
“Come on,” I say quietly, not trusting my voice to carry across the distance. “We can talk in the loft.”
I lead them toward the barn, hyperaware of their presence behind me as we climb the ladder to the hayloft. The space is warm and dusty, filled with golden light filtering through wooden slats.
We arrange ourselves in a loose circle on scattered hay bales, the informal seating making everything feel both more intimate and more fragile.
Like we’re kids playing house, except the house is on fire and we’re all holding matches.
I fold my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking, unsure if the tremor is from nerves or just being this close to the three men who turned my world into a crater.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything that needs to be said and everything that might be impossible to fix.
I don’t know what they came here to tell me, or whether any words exist that could bridge the chasm that opened between us on that stage. But as my heart pounds in the dusty stillness, something stirs inside me that I haven’t felt in weeks.
Not fear this time, not the crushing weight of shame or betrayal. Just a flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe, they came back for the right reasons.
“So,” I say finally, voice barely above a whisper. “Talk.”
30
