Do I still love him?
The sweat beads thickened. No. Impossible. How could she after everything—No. Just ... don’t think about it.
“HH! You here?”
Harlow bolted upright. Matt.Door, be locked, please be locked.
“Are you okay?” Harlow shrank against the window and grabbed a few pillows for camouflage. “Harlow?”
The doorknob jiggled.
“Harlow, I’m worried. Look, I know Xander was here. Simon told me.”
“It’s open, Matt.”
Matt walked past her into the kitchen, bringing the scent of the ocean and the rink, of fading soap, of a man’s life. She smelled of sticky sweetness and perspiring underarms no longer guarded by her Secret.
“Harlow?”
“I’m here.” Stains and all. “Sorry I missed work.”
Matt propped against the kitchen archway. “I see you dined with variety this afternoon.”
“I put the Reese’s in the ice cream. Ate it with chips.”
He looked impressed. “Nice touch. So, Xander?”
Her eyes brimmed over. “Xander said he loves me. Wants me to go home with him. Marry him.” She sat up and gathered her dignity but kept her distance to separate her fragrance from his. “He claims Davina confused him, made him think their relationship deserved another chance but now he realizes he’s”—she intoned his refined upper-crust accent—“deeply, passionately in love with me.”
“What brought him to this revelation?”
“That he was thinking of me all the time, expected me to be there when he came home at night. My theory is Davina admitted she doesn’t want a family.”
The weight of his confession mingled with her extravagant lunch. Xander knew how to appeal to her with talk of a family. Fresh perspiration beaded over the old. Nevertheless, he sounded so sincere.
“Hey, what’s churning behind your gorgeous eyes?”
She twisted her hands together, then wiped a dew of perspiration from her lip. Was the A/C working? “Just wondering if ... maybe ... he deserves a second chance.”
“What? No, Harlow, he’s a putz. Like you said, Davina’s done something to make him realize she’s a schmutz and when she turns up all repentant and batting her eyes, he’ll go right back to her.”
“I don’t know, Matt. Putz aside, Xander is one of the most genuine people you’ll ever meet. He wants a family. I want a family.”
“There has to be more to a relationship than that, Harlow. I mean, what really happened between you two? What didn’t you tell me at the diner the other day?”
She tossed off the pillows and focused on the shadow of the Starlight’sT. “I didn’t see it coming. The breakup. One day I lived in a Manhattan penthouse with my fiancé, the next day the security guard wouldn’t let me past the lobby desk. I had no idea what was happening. I called the penthouse, Xander’s work, no one would talk to me. The security guard who said hello to me every day and exchanged pleasantries, who I bought Christmas and birthday gifts for, walked me outside and said, ‘I have orders not to let you in, Miss Hayes.’”
“He just kicked you out?”
“I took a cab to Icon and tried Xander’s office all afternoon. He was in perpetual meetings.”
“I suspected he was a snake, but he’s really a monster.”
“I checked into the Waldorf until we sorted it out, but a week later he still wasn’t talking to me and then my financial advisor was arrested. All my money was gone, except for what I had in savings. Icon called me for work, but I couldn’t, Matt. I just couldn’t smile for the camera. The man I’d trusted with every fiber of my being, with my heart, even with my money, was no longer speaking to me.” She dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye. “Pretty pitiful, huh?”
“Xander, yes. You, pretty darn courageous.”
“I shouldn’t have told you.” She peered at him. “No one else knows. Please don’t tell anyone what he did to me. I’d die of humiliation. People think our split was mutual.”
