It’s then that I break. All my fear of the future, all the pain for my little family splintering apart, comes out as one keening sob.
He makes a choked sound, and without a word draws me to him, one arm wrapped protectively around my back, his other hand cupping my head, hugging me to his chest.
“I’m here,” he whispers.
It’s exactly what I need to hear, and that only makes me cry harder, my fingers digging into the soft fabric of his T-shirt, which is getting wetter by the minute, thanks to my tears.
I cry and cry, pulling back only long enough to dab at my smeared mascara. “You must think I’m ridiculous,” I whisper, my voice raspy from crying.
“Always,” he whispers, his lips brushing over my cheek. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“My parents,” I say with a sniffle. “They’re getting divorced.”
I’m not expecting him to say much, but at the very least I expect some sort of useless, guy-ish murmurings that he imagines will be soothing.
He says nothing.
I raise my eyes to his, and my heart stops for a full beat at what I see there.
He looks stricken but not surprised. Most damning of all, he looks…guilty?
I take a tiny step backward, my heart beating again, but in a pounding, panicked kind of way. “Andrew?”
“Georgiana.”
I know then. I know.
He reaches out a hand, but I step back with a slightly crazy laugh, staying out of reach. “You knew.”
He says nothing, and suddenly I lunge forward, shoving his shoulder. “Admit it! You knew!”
He inhales, his chest expanding, and then he nods. Just once. But it’s enough. “Yes. I knew.”
Andrew
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, AFTER BRUNCH
Andrew had known this moment was coming. He’d thought he was ready for it. But seeing the heartbreak written all over Georgiana’s face…
There was no preparing for something like this.
No way to brace for the fact that you’d just destroyed someone who’d somehow become everything to you in an alarmingly short period of time.
She shook her head. “How?” she said, her voice so small he wanted to punch himself. “How did you know?”
Then her eyes closed as she put the pieces together. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Did one of them hire you?”
He swallowed. “Your mother.”
Georgina’s laugh was mirthless and ripped at his soul. “Of course. Of course she did. And oh God—oh my God—I planted the seed in her head. I mentioned you, and…oh my God, I somehow did this, all because I was stupid enough to fall for a divorce attorney?”
His mind caught on that just for a second. She’d told her parents about him? She’d fallen for him? For a bittersweet moment he felt a surge of joy so profound it nearly sent him to his knees. But before they could get to any of that, they needed to get through this.
And they would get through it. They had to. He just needed to make her see logic.
“You need to know that I didn’t take the job,” he said, reaching for her. “I passed it off to one of the other partners.”
Her head whipped back around to him. She was hurt, and she was pissed.