Sitting was better. It made me feel stronger than I was. I thought about the reason we were there—the perky romantic sitting in the room nearby. Her faith and encouragement had been instrumental in reuniting me with Hudson. Even if she couldn’t save us again, I owed her.

I lifted my chin and met Hudson’s eyes. “Then we need to put everything else aside for right now and give Mira our happy face.”

He held my gaze for only a second. “I agree.”

There was plenty of room on the couch by me, but he took a seat in a chair instead. He couldn’t even sit by me. The rejection rippled through me with excruciating pain. Every move he made, everything he said, hurt.

I wanted to do the same to him. Wanted to hurt him in all the ways he’d hurt me. My fists tightened into balls as I thought about ripping into him, telling him all the things that were barely under the surface of my composure.

But again, I remembered why we were there. Mira would be upset if we didn’t walk back in her room together. The best thing I could do for her and myself was make a plan and get back to her. Back to the comfort of people who made me feel good rather than sad.

Obviously this would require some acting. A lot of acting. “So any idea how to give Mira a happy face? Because she read right through us in there.”

“She is very perceptive.” Hudson leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, his chin in his hands. “But I think if we wait here for a while, give us time to supposedly talk things out, then if we go back in there with smiles and…holding hands, she’ll believe it.” His pause said that even holding hands sounded uncomfortable for him. “She wants to believe it, so she will.”

I made a gruff sound in the back of my throat. “Pretending we’re a couple. Just like old times.”

His head spun toward me. He fastened me with a piercing stare. “We aren’t pretending we’re a couple. We are a couple. We’re pretending that we’re…that we’re not…” He moved his hand in the air as he tried to figure out how to finish his sentence.

When he didn’t come up with an end, I pushed him. “That we’re not…what? Not fighting? Not completely confused and heartbroken? Not miserable and lied to?” My voice cracked, and I refused to cry. Biting my lip, I crossed one leg over the other and put all my energy into jostling my knee up and down. It helped to focus my pain.

Hudson stared at the wall across from him, refusing to respond or look at me.

I should have dropped it, but I couldn’t help myself. “I don’t understand how you can say we’re a couple when you’re living in one place and I’m in another. When you’re on dates with another woman.”

“I told you what that was,” he said quietly.

I ignored him. “When you won’t even let me touch you without acting like it burns.” I shook my head. I was getting too upset. “I said I wouldn’t do this here. I’m sorry.” Except I really wasn’t. “Sort of.”

I wanted him to refute my words, wanted him to explain how things really were. But he didn’t. Sure, it wasn’t the time or place—I knew that in my head. My heart, on the other hand, didn’t care. I was in so much pain, how could he not be? And if he wasn’t, what did that mean?

It means he can compartmentalize, I told myself. That’s all. God, what I’d give to believe that was all it was.

We sat in silence, the only sound the clicking of the seconds ticking by on the wall clock. Finally, Hudson spoke, his voice low and sincere. “Touching you only burns because it reminds me how much I want to touch you more.”

A wave of optimism burst through me, so tangible and fierce that my whole chest felt on fire. “Then touch me more, H. Come home.”

He raised a brow and his expression carried the same air of hope that I felt. “And you’ll let the past lie?”

With everything in me I wanted to say yes. Yes, I’ll live with it. Whatever it is. I’d find a way. I’d said that before, and I’d thought I meant it. But I’d been talking desperate. I couldn’t live with it. There was no possible way.

Besides, I respected myself more than that. I respected our relationship more than that. Even if it meant losing him, I had to stand my ground on this. “No. I can’t let it lie. But you can tell me what it is you’re hiding.”

With a shake of his head, he dismissed it.

There we were again—at our impasse. “We might as well be broken up, Hudson, if you can’t believe that I’d love you beyond whatever this secret is.”

And if we truly couldn’t get past this, why were we even taking time apart? Weren’t we just postponing the inevitable?

It wasn’t something I could face. Not yet. Maybe the time apart was to help make that idea more bearable.

Apparently, Hudson felt the same way. “Let’s not do this here.”

“Let’s not.” Let’s not do this at all. Let’s go back to where we were three days ago, lost and alone in the mountains. Happy and glowing, as Mira put it.

If there were anything I’d ever wished for more, I didn’t know what it was.

But wishing wouldn’t get us through the next hour. I stood up and paced the room. “Okay. We’ll go in there. We’ll smile. We’ll hold hands. We’ll be happy and glowing. And Mira will never know the lie.”

“Yes,” Hudson said. “Thank you.”

“What if she asks what our problem was?”

“She won’t.”

I wasn’t so sure and the expression I shot him said exactly that.

“If she does ask, let me handle it.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.” The venom I was trying to bite back slipped past my lips. “You are the master manipulator, after all.”

He stared at me with sad eyes. I’d meant to hurt him, and it worked. But he didn’t argue, didn’t defend himself. He wouldn’t even fight with me. Wouldn’t fight for me.

It’s not the place, I reminded myself. The reminder didn’t change the hollow ache in my chest. I knew his indifference extended beyond the walls of the hospital.

Hudson stood. “Are you ready to go back?” He shoved his hands in his pockets, obviously keeping them from my reach.

Fucking ass**le.

I didn’t let him know how much his simple gesture felt like a knife in the gut. “You think she’ll believe this was long enough?”

“Yes.” He moved to the door and held it open for me. “If we convince her that all is well, then she won’t focus on the timespan in the least. She’ll have no reason to question what we’re selling.” He was so clinical about it. So proficient about the steps of pulling off a scheme.