"Why didn't you tell me?" The words came out harder than intended, but I was too tired and too raw to soften them.
Her chin lifted, defensive armor clicking into place. "Tell you what? That I used to have a different job? Would it have mattered?"
"A different job?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "That's what you call it?"
"Yes," she snapped. "That's exactly what I call it. Work. Legal work that paid my bills and kept me alive when I had nothing else."
"You lied to me."
"I didn't lie. I just didn't share my entire history with someone who made it clear he hated outsiders from the moment we met."
"You let me think you were something you're not."
"I am exactly what I said I was—a candy maker trying to save her shop. Everything else is the past."
"The past?" I pulled out my phone, showing her the cached page I'd saved. "This looks pretty recent to me."
She flinched seeing the images, her face flushing red. "That was well over a year ago, when I hit rock bottom. Before rehab. You had no right to search for that."
"I had every right to know who I was letting onto my property. Who I was dealing with regarding my family's legacy."
"Your family's legacy?" Her voice rose, anger overtaking shame. "You think I'm going to contaminate your precious syrup because I used to take my clothes off for money? Think I'm going to seduce you out of your trees?"
"I don't know what to think. I don't know who you really are."
"You know exactly who I am. I'm the woman who showed up every day, worked until her hands bled, learned your family's traditions with respect. That's who I am."
"You're also someone who sells herself to strangers on the internet."
The slap came so fast I didn't see it coming. My cheek stung, but not as much as the look in her eyes.
"How dare you," she said, voice low and dangerous. "You don't know anything about what I've been through. What I've survived. You sit up here on your mountain, hiding from the world because one company screwed you over, and you think you understand struggle? You think you get to judge me?"
"I'm not judging—"
"Bullshit. You're looking at me like I'm dirty. Like I'm something you stepped in."
"That's not—"
"It is. It's exactly what you're doing. Poor, pure Sawyer Blackwood, corrupted by the evil city woman who dared to use her body to survive."
"Survive? You weren't surviving, you were—"
"What? Go ahead, say it. Say what you really think."
"You were selling yourself. Taking money from men like Will, married men, feeding their fantasies—"
"I was taking control of my life after it fell apart. I was using the only asset I had left after a car accident destroyed my back and doctors got me addicted to opioids. I was doing whatever it took to pay for rehab, to get clean, to start over. But you wouldn'tunderstand that, would you? Because you've never had to choose between degradation and death."
Her words hit like physical blows. The pain in her voice, the raw honesty, made me step back.
"You could have told me," I said quietly.
"When?" She grabbed the porch railing, knuckles white. "When you were glaring at me like I was the enemy? When you made it clear you trusted no one?" Her voice cracked. "When exactly should I have said, 'Hey, by the way, I used to be a sex worker but I'm totally legitimate now, please give me your syrup'?"
"It would have been better than hiding it."
"I wasn't hiding. I just... I wanted you to see me. Not her. Not Sweet Cinn. Just me."
