Page 170 of For Better or Hearse

Her brain scrambles. Her throat closes up.

“There’s a house on the beach in Venice. Close enough to the ocean I bet we can hear it from the bedroom.” He grins, his face lighting up. “It’s ten minutes from a cemetery. But you can look too,” he tells her. “I trust you. All I care about when I get back is starting our life together.”

Her phone buzzes a warning on the table. She ignores it.

Palm cupping the back of her neck, he kisses her brow. “I like knowing you’re in my bed,” he teases. “Pining for me.”

She doesn’t smile. She can’t. All she wants to do is break down and bawl.

It sounds perfect. A life with Nathaniel. Beach walks, cemetery walks. Waking with him in the morning, going to sleep with him at night.

But it can’t be perfect. Not with this living, breathing thing called guilt. How can she do this? Move forward with him? Be in the now. She has to settle their pasts first. Her mess. It’s always her mess that comes back to bite her in the ass. If she doesn’t tell him now, he’ll only find out later, and she’ll lose him.

She can’t fuck with the integrity of her love for him. She owes him the truth.

“Ash?” He’s peering at her, confused.

Panic fizzes. Explodes.

“I can’t do this,” she blurts.

“It’s too fast,” he says slowly, patiently, even as a flash of fear crosses his face. “I get it.”

“No.” Her throat, the backs of her eyes burn. “It’s—it’s everything. But I’m not.”

His eyebrows slant low. “You’re not what? What are you talking about?”

“You can’t take care of me, Nathaniel. You don’t have to. It’s not your job.” She’s rambling. She can’t stop.

“Ash. Ashabelle, what is it?” He cups her face with those big, warm hands, sweeping his thumbs softly over her cheeks to banish the tears. “You’re scaring me.”

“I can’t do this anymore. I have to tell you the truth. I have to tell you who hired me.”

His shoulders tense. And with a sigh, he drops his hands. “I don’t need to know that. Not anymore.”

She backs away from him. “You do, you do. Because I can’t do this if you don’t know. You’re owed the truth, Nathaniel. If Ikeep it from you, I’m no better than Jakob.” She inhales a breath. “It was Camellia.”

He goes still.

So painfully still.

Ash gulps air. Her heart feels like it will combust any second. “She hired me. She gave me that photo. She knew it was Delaney. But I didn’t. And I—I did what I did. Because I’m an asshole.”

He stares at the ground, the strong line of his jaw pulsing. “You’re not an asshole.”

“Yes, I am. She hired me because she was too scared to do it herself. To tell you that she didn’t want to marry you.” She has to get it all out. Every last bit.

His head snaps up. The pain on his face is so visceral he looks like he’s been stabbed in the throat. “She said that?”

She licks her dry lips. She’s sweating. Ungodly amounts. God, what’s wrong with her?

“Yes. She said that.”

Utter silence.

Ash wipes her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sit.”