That was something I could never bring myself to do. I wasn’t in love with Drew, no matter how much I tried to make myself fall for him. There was something nagging at my brain that told me he wasn’t the right fit for me. I had ignored that voice until now, assuming it was just my younger self beating against the cage I’d locked her in all those years ago. She didn’t understand that Logan stopped wanting us more than a decade ago.
I knew that Logan had found out exactly what karma felt like in the days and weeks after I disappeared. I might have been smart about staying hidden, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t curious. I looked into him, during a desperate moment, and found information about a scandal that got him kicked out of MIT. That bitch had stolen his code and set him up.
Eventually, it was proven that he was the one wronged, but it took time. By then, the damage was done and Logan refused to return to their school. That had been the last time I purposely looked for information about him. Though, it was far from the final bit of news I’d received about my first and only love.
I’d inadvertently had his and his brothers’ escapades thrown in my face over the years as they were all in the news or in some tabloid or other. Logan and Lucian, being the youngest, were often with a different woman on their arm for various events. Gideon and Adrian had their own bouts of press because of their billion-dollar empire. It was hard to believe that Adrian was married with children of his own and Gideon kept things so professional that there was barely a blip about him on a personallevel - beyond him being one of New York’s most eligible bachelors for a few years running.
I wanted happiness for all of the Maddox boys, despite the way Logan broke my heart. That didn’t mean it wasn’t bittersweet to think of some of them as happily married and ridiculously successful when I never got to experience that with the one person I wanted more than anyone on the planet. Then again, I knew better than the average person that you never really knew what was going on in a person’s life. My friends didn’t even know my real name. The man who got down on one knee to propose to me didn’t know it either.
I should have felt guilty for thinking that as another man’s ring sat heavily on my finger. The reality was that I hadn’t, and more importantly, couldn’t say yes to him. Not yet anyway. Still, I didn’t remove the ring and allowed Drew to wrap his arms around me as tears, born of frustration, fell from my face.
Everyone around us cooed over the beautiful moment and my supposed “happy tears,” but that was only because they didn’t know the real me well enough to understand that they were tears of complete devastation. I had asked one thing of my grandmother when she left me in Greece. I needed her to tell the Maddox boys - especially Logan - that I was okay. She promised to give Logan the message, in case he ever wanted to disappear with me.
That never happened.
I swore that I would move on.
“You could at least pretend to be happy rather than acting like your world just ended,” Drew whispered in my ear.
“I’m in shock,” I argued quietly.
“No, you’re not.” His insistence held a violent quality that sent a shiver down my spine as well as putting me on high alert.
“Not even five minutes, and the proposal announcement photo has already had over two thousand likes!” Shaina squealed excitedly.
“What announcement?” I snapped as I grabbed the phone from her hand. My eyes widened as I saw my face, the ring, and my alias plastered in a hashtag on her Insta account. “What have you done?” I asked as my fingers flew across her screen and worked to delete it immediately. “Did anyone else invade my privacy like this?” I yelled as my eyes shifted from person-to-person. They all shook their heads.
“I know you’re a private person, but come on, Miranda. It’s not like a wedding between you and Drew won’t be crawling with media attention and people who will post pictures everywhere because of who he is.”
Who he is.
That was something Shaina hinted at more than once and I had begun to dread the fact that maybe I wasn’t the only one hiding in plain sight. “Why would there be so much interest in my potential wedding to Drew?”
“Shaina thinks because I’m hot that everyone will want to know about us, babe. Ignore her. You know she has that vapid influencer thing going on. All makeup and zero substance.”
“Wow, you think so highly of your friend,” I said. Everyone quietly dispersed and headed back down from the rooftop of the building we were on. It wasn’t smart to come back to the United States. I knew that. I figured being on the west coast would be far enough to keep me safe from my father and the New York-based Sweeney Gang. I’d been living in San Diego for a little more than a year with no problems, but a single picture could be the difference in my continued peaceful existence and my world imploding.
Once everyone was gone, Drew took my hand and guided me to the outdoor lounge area near where he’d just proposed.His hands kept hold of mine the whole way and when we sat, he maintained that contact. “I know I sprang that on you out of nowhere. We talked about getting more serious, and now I realize that I was thinking about marriage while you were obviously headed in a different direction, or at least a slower one.” His tone implied that he expected me to answer a question he hadn’t bothered to ask.
“Drew, we’ve only dated a short time. I think it’s too soon.”
“We’re not getting any younger, babe. I want to have kids someday, and you said the same thing. We’re both in our thirties and I’m creeping up on forty in less than a year.”
Everything he said was true. I was only thirty-three, though. I still had time, at least, I hoped I still had enough to make a family one day. The problem was that I didn’t want to bring a child into a world where I had to live under an assumed name. If I couldn’t be Aoife again, then what was the point? My children would know my damn name, not some fake identity that was necessary to hide me from my own family.
“How about you keep that ring on your finger and accompany me to see my mother next week. She’s been begging me to come home for the holidays and isn’t able to come out to California to see me this year.”
“New York? You want me to go to New York with you to see your mom?”
“Yeah, what’s your problem with New York?”
“It’s just a big trip and what will she think if I’m wearing your ring and then decide it’s too soon to marry you?”
He chuckled but that thing behind his eyes that shouted to the world about how angry he was seemed to blaze to life again, contradicting the humor he meant to portray. “She’ll love you enough to hope that you eventually decide to walk down the aisle with me.”
“How do you know that?” I asked as he gave me back that cocky grin that made him look like the epitome of a handsome devil.
“I know because I love you enough to want that and my mom wants me to be happy above all else.”
