“I’m not leaving.” The words are rough, and she turns to eye me warily when I take her hand. “Knowing you have a past hasn’t changed the fact that I want to get to know you.”
“Was your past ever splashed all over the town’s local paper without your approval?”
“No, but I grew up here, so I’m sure at some point you’ll hear a story or two about me.”
“What kind of stories?” she asks, dropping her gaze to my thumb as it rubs across her wrist.
“I was a rebel growing up. I was always pushing boundaries and getting in trouble.”
“That’s surprising. I would have guessed you always followed the rules.”
“I wanted my parents to prove they loved me enough to stick around, regardless of how shitty I was,” I tell her truthfully. “I don’t remember my birth parents—not much about them, really—but them abandoning me became a part of who I was, who I am, and when I was a kid it made me feel insecure.”
“Calvin.” She turns her hand in mine and grasps my fingers.
“You’ll probably hear about me and my ex at some point too. I was with her for several years. I thought we were working toward spending the rest of our lives together, but she realized that she couldn’t live a life where her future husband missed events and was out all night because of work.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me,” I tell her, looking into her eyes. “I just want you to know that we both have pasts. The things we went through led us to who we became and where we are. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy dealing with the fallout from whatever story Max makes up, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. You did what you felt you had to do,” I say, watching her eyes fill with tears. “No tears. For now let’s forget about the article until it’s time to deal with it and just enjoy our cold pizza and this view.”
“Okay,” she agrees, and I lift her hand and kiss her fingers. I let her go and give her plate back before settling in my chair with mine. “I know we’re supposed to be done talking about it, but do you know what’s annoying?” she asks as I lift my pizza to take a bite.
“No.”
“It’s annoying that I haven’t spoken to my parents in weeks, since they haven’t been taking my calls, but I have no doubt that if they catch wind of this, they’ll call me faster than a duck can swim upstream.” She lifts her wineglass and downs a gulp. “That’s annoying.”
“I think you mean downstream.”
“What?” She frowns at me as she sets her glass down.
“Faster than a duck can swim downstream.”
“Does it really matter what direction the duck is swimming?”
My lips twitch. “No, I guess not.”
“Exactly.” She waves her hand around before taking a bite of pizza.
“Why haven’t you talked to your parents?” I ask before lifting my beer to my lips.
“You haven’t heard?” she questions sarcastically. “I ran away from Chicago and ended my engagement to the perfect guy.”
An emotion I’m not comfortable with settles in the pit of my stomach. I shouldn’t be jealous, not when she’s not mine and obviously still trying to come to terms with what happened. Still, there’s no denying that the feeling in my stomach is jealousy. “The perfect guy?”
At my question, she looks at me, and her eyes widen like she’s just realized what she said, and she shakes her head. “He was the perfect guy for them, not me.”
“How’s that?” I ask, not understanding.
“Because I didn’t love him. Because he didn’t make me happy.”
“Why was he the perfect guy for them?” I prompt, and she looks away for a moment.
When her eyes come back to me and she speaks again, her voice is soft and filled with regret. “I don’t think we should be talking about this.”
“Why not?” I should let her off the hook, but I want to know what led her to being engaged to a man she admits she didn’t love.
“Because I kind of like you, and I don’t want you to think less of me.”
“I won’t think less of you,” I tell her sincerely.
“You can’t say that, Calvin. You don’t know the lengths I was willing to go to earn my parents’ love and make them happy.”
“You were going to marry him to make your parents happy? Why would marrying him make them happy?”
“Because he had money.”
“And why did you get into a relationship with him?” I ask, and she looks away. “Anna.”
“The truth is I thought the first time I met him that he was different. He didn’t talk about money all the time. He didn’t seem to care about who my family was. He was nice and easygoing, and I thought I could love him.”