Moonlight In Vermont. Kacy Cross

in a hurry. Commercial real estate had a completely different set of rules, of pitfalls and challenges. Could she do it? Of course. It might even be fun to see if she could dominate that arena as she had residential property. However, it would be a giant increase in responsibility, not to mention adding hours upon hours to her already busy work week.

      But what else did she have to do with her time? Nothing. Maybe destiny had handed her this opportunity to make up for the Nate-sized void in her life. Or a potential way to eventually show him that she’d made changes he might appreciate.

      Apparently sensing her indecision, Irwin climbed to his feet. “Okay. Just think about it. But not for too long.”

      As Irwin grabbed his coat to show himself out of her office, Fiona nodded, her mind still whirling with this unexpected decision. Fate had a funny sense of humor. If this had happened two days ago, she’d call Nate immediately to hash out the pros and cons. That was why she’d fallen for him, after all. He had a sharp, strategic mind and he’d always listened to her with this intense focus, then offered his opinion with concise, well-thought-out reasoning.

      Well, not anymore. Now she’d make her own decisions based solely on what was good for Fiona Rangely.

      Brunch had not been a good decision.

      Fiona stared at the exposed brick next to the tiny table Angela had grabbed near the window and reeled back the emotion that seemed to always be so close to the surface these days. The coffee didn’t taste right and she couldn’t stomach the thought of eating. Normally, she loved people-watching, but every person strolling down the sidewalk outside had a mate. Two by two, they laughed at each other’s jokes as they walked, joined at the hip as if they couldn’t bear to be separated.

      It was nauseating.

      Shifting her attention back to Ang, she shook her head. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m not brunch-ready yet.”

      Angela, who had dressed to the nines for the occasion in a gorgeous navy blue sweater set, set down her coffee cup. “Oh, sure you are. You have been working non-stop for, what’s it been now, three weeks?”

      “Since Nate?” Rhetorical question. Of course that was what she meant. Lately Fiona had categorized everything as Before Nate and After Nate, a practice Angela didn’t like. “Oh, twenty-two days and thirteen hours, but I mean, who’s counting?”

      Ang raised her brows, a sure sign she had a smart-aleck comeback all lined up. “So glad you’re not obsessing.” But then she rolled her eyes and smoothed back her red curls without mussing her style. “You remind me of this patient I have. Every session, he obsesses about his cat.”

      Nice. So now Fiona’s heartbreak had been lumped into the same category as cat obsessions. “Isn’t there something called patient confidentiality?”

      “Don’t be boring. And don’t block your feelings,” Ang threw in.

      She’d been saying that every chance she had, which Fiona didn’t get. It was starting to become annoying, honestly. She had a broken heart here. What else was there to unblock? Did Ang want her to bleed? Cry? What?

      “I just can’t believe that he dumped me,” she mumbled, which wasn’t even half of it. “If only I could pay to have my feelings go away.”

      “How do you think I paid for my condo?” Ang said slyly.

      If only taking Ang up on her subtle offer to help would work. It wouldn’t. Nate hadn’t called. Hadn’t stopped by. Hadn’t given Fiona the slightest indication he even noticed the void in his life where his girlfriend used to be. Maybe he didn’t miss her at all, which if true, would be just devastating.

      Had she been ignoring his needs that much?

      If he thought that, maybe he was punishing her for it. Making her feel lonely and abandoned like he’d said he had felt, until he decided she’d had enough and that’s when he’d come back. That was kind of mean, if so.

      “Never mind,” Ang continued, “you know what your problem is? You never slow down long enough for you to actually have feelings.”

      Fiona’s phone vibrated with the special pattern she used for Andy. Perfect time to segue out of this uncomfortable conversation into something that made sense—real estate. “Hold that thought.”

      Ang pulled the phone from her hand. “My point exactly.”

      Without the phone as a distraction, memories got the best of her, and this was no exception. “Nate used to love this place. He would get the Reuben on rye. It was his favorite.”

      “Fiona.” Ang’s calm voice cut through the scene playing out in her head. The moment Fiona focused on her, she said, “You’re going to have to move on.”

      No. That wasn’t happening. She needed to figure this out. There was always a possibility that if she did, Nate would forgive her. They could pick up where they’d left off. There was no law that said she couldn’t have hope.

      Except Nate had given zero indication that he might be thinking of reconciling.

      “Every relationship I’m in just falls apart. What if I’m alone permanently? Really, what if I’m like that half duplex that just sits on the market forever?”

      “You need a fresh perspective,” Ang told her. “You know, I think we could both use a holiday out of town.”

      The foreign word rolled around in her head as she tried to put some context around Ang’s point. “What, you mean like a vacation?”

      “Yeah. Let’s shake things up a little. Get your mind off of Nate. You can come back here with a fresh start.” Ang’s face lit up. “I know just the place. We should go visit your dad. I’ve always wanted to see the inn.”

      “The inn?” Now Angela was just talking crazy. Why would Fiona voluntarily visit the place that had supplanted her childhood home? “I don’t know. My stepmom is still upset with me for not visiting since last summer. And you know my dad and I have issues.” The last time she’d gone up there—which had only happened because Delia harassed her until Fiona took two days off to breeze through—she and her father had barely spoken outside of surface-level chitchat about the inn and its daily functions.

      “You need a change of scenery,” Ang said firmly and gestured at the bistro’s other tables. “Let’s face it. Manhattan is ground zero for happy couples. Holding hands through Central Park, shopping along Fifth Avenue, brunch in places like this. I mean… look.”

      Fiona followed her gesture to spy a couple with their heads together at a nearby table. They weren’t even eating, just laughing softly to each other in that way newly-in-love people do when everything is rosy and beautiful.

      The couple even had matching scarves. Gag.

      Angela topped off Exhibit A with, “That is my point exactly.”

      It was an arrow through the gut, all right. The city wasn’t a good place to be right now, not if she planned to keep pretending she wasn’t devastated.

      Then she had a worse thought. She had a much higher chance of running into Nate by haunting the places he liked, which was the real reason brunch had been a bad idea. The breakup had her all turned around.

      If nothing else, she needed to be someplace Nate was not. “You sold me. When do we leave?”

      Three

      Before she could go all the way to Vermont, Fiona had to clear the air with Delia, her stepmother. When Fiona’s father had remarried a couple of years after his wife died, Fiona expected to hate the woman who had replaced her mom. She didn’t.

      Delia was wonderful, exactly what her lonely