Chapter 247. The Best Intentions

Love’s POV

“Hired?”

The word slipped past my lips before I could stop it, thin and brittle, as if it might shatter the moment it touched the air. Dread flooded me so suddenly that I felt dizzy, my chest tightening as though an invisible hand had closed around my heart and squeezed. I stared at them—at Luis, at my parents, at Ellis—waiting for someone to laugh and tell me this was all a misunderstanding. No one did.

“I’m sorry,” Luis whispered.

His voice, usually steady and teasing, sounded subdued now, stripped of its familiar warmth. Ellis stepped closer to me, his hand coming to rest on my arm in a gesture meant to comfort, to ground me. The moment his fingers touched my skin, something inside me snapped. I pulled away sharply, my breath hitching.

“Don’t,” I said, my voice sh