Page 75 of The Man in the Cottage

"She also sent me a list of things to buy at the grocery store. Very detailed. Color-coded."

I laugh. "That sounds like Nicole."

"I like your friends."

"They like you too. Brit said you're disgustingly handsome, and Mona wants to know if you have any single teammates."

"I'll see what I can do."

We stand there for a moment, swaying slightly, the morning light coming through the windows. I'm tired and a little hungover and I probably smell like wine, but I don't care. This feels right. This feels like where I'm supposed to be.

"Breakfast?" Travis asks.

"Breakfast."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Travis

I drive to my parents' house on a Thursday.

I don't tell Kelly I'm going. She'd try to talk me out of it, or worse, she'd insist on coming with me. And this is something I need to do alone. A conversation that's been building for years, maybe decades. A door I should have closed a long time ago.

The drive takes four hours. I leave at dawn and watch the sun rise over the highway, the sky going from black to gray to pale gold. I don't listen to music. I don't call anyone. I just drive, letting my thoughts unspool in the silence.

I've been thinking about this since the story broke. Since I read those articles and saw what my family was willing to do to Kelly—to us—just to get back at me. I told myself I was done with them before. I drew lines, set boundaries, made threats. But I always left the door cracked. Always let them believe there was a way back in.

Not anymore.

The house looks the same as it always has. A split-level in a nice suburb, the lawn trimmed, the hedges neat. My father bought it with money I gave him five years ago. My mother redecorated it with more money I gave her three years ago. Every brick, every window, every perfectly placed garden gnome is a reminder of how much I've poured into this family and how little I've gotten back.

I park in the driveway and sit for a moment, gathering myself. My hands are steady on the wheel. My heartbeat is calm. I thought I'd be nervous, but I'm not. I'm just tired. Tired of fighting, tired of hoping, tired of pretending things might change.

I get out of the truck and walk to the front door. I don't knock. I just open it and walk in, the way I used to when I was a kid, before everything got complicated.

My mother is in the kitchen. I can hear her talking to someone—on the phone, probably. Her voice carries through the house, the way it always is when she's trying to impress someone.

"—and I said to her, Patricia, you can't just let people walk all over you. You have to stand up for yourself. That's what I've always taught my children—"

She stops mid-sentence when she sees me in the doorway.

"I'll call you back," she says into the phone, and hangs up without waiting for a response. "Travis. What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk."

"You could have called."

"You wouldn't have answered. And I didn't want to do this over the phone."

She sets down the phone and crosses her arms, studying me the way she used to when I was a teenager coming home past curfew. Looking for weakness, for an angle, for something she can use.

"Is this about those articles?" she asks. "Because I had nothing to do with that. I don't know where those reporters got their information."

"Don't." I hold up my hand. "Don't lie to me. Not today. I know it was you and Savannah. 'Sources close to the family.' Who else would that be?"

Her jaw tightens. "We were trying to protect you."

"Protect me? You called Kelly a gold digger. You said she was controlling and calculating. You tried to destroy her reputation just because she's with me."