“I haven’t decided yet.”
Paige half groans, half chuckles. We’ve ended up sitting on the stone dock, my boat rocking softly beside us.
She settles against my side and her breathing slows. She looks vulnerable like this, knees drawn up, her hair a mess around her shoulders. “I played tennis all my childhood, in high school, too. I went to college on a tennis scholarship. But I knew it wasn’t what I wanted long-term. I could never go pro or anything.” She takes a deep breath, and I curl one of her blonde locks around my finger.
This is not where I thought she’d start.
“My mother taught me. She was a great player; she did go pro for a few years. And then when I was in my second year of college…”
“They passed away.”
“Yes. A car crash. They were in Oregon visiting my aunt, and there was a truck. Drunk driving. They died instantly, but from one day to the next…”
“Your whole life changed.”
“See, that’s the thing.” She turns, her voice strengthening. My arm is still beneath her head. “It did and it didn’t. I was still at college. I still had my summer job lined up at Mather & Wilde. I had my uncle. Everything changed and yet nothing was different.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I had my college scholarship, and it was conditional on me playing for the school.” She takes another deep breath. “Iinherited shares, not bucketloads of money, you know? So I’d go out on court and play in tournaments, then fall apart afterward. When no one could see me.”
Like I did.
Buried it in the night, in fighting and in nightmares, clad in darkness. Far away from where friends and family could bear witness.
There’s been so much on her shoulders since then. Her family company and her future, and all of it with no one but a meddling uncle to rely on.
“I was doing so well here, with all of it. I made sure I’d only fall apart in private. But then you saw.”
“I did.”
She puts a hand over her face. “Can I just say how much I hate that you did see it? And then how terrified I’ve been that you’ve actually been… that I can… that it helps me?”
“You can say it. You can say anything.” I press my lips to her temple. Her skin is soft. I shift my lips to her hair, the sheet of gold that’s haunted me since she first walked into the courthouse.
“Why do you understand me so well? Is it because of your… your nightmares? And the accident?” Her knees pull up, resting against mine. “That interviewer out there, she?—”
“She didn’t see a thing. We’ll make sure of that.” The stone is hard beneath me, but she’s soft. Her question is valid. But I don’t want to answer it, because it’s different. I was the cause of my accident and what it cost me. “Did your panic attacks start coming more often when you married me?”
I stroke over her back, like the answer doesn’t matter immensely. Like my heart isn’t pounding in my chest at the idea.
“No, that’s not why. I don’t think so, at least.” She takes another deep breath. “I’m not always good at having… atfeeling.And for many years I tried to not feel. But that’s been hard lately.”
“You’re feeling a lot these days,” I say.
She nods, and the hand on my chest flattens. “My uncle is gone. He’s still alive, but the relationship I’ve held on to for years…” Another tear runs down her cheek. It’s soaked up by my shirt.
“He’s a fool,” I say, “for not realizing what he had. Anyone would be a fool to have you in their lives and lose you.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” There are many reasons why I dislike Ben Wilde. Many very intense reasons, connected specifically to my little sister. But to throw away his last remaining family with carelessness, with neglect, is an action I’m never going to understand. Paige is whip-sharp and her ideas for Mather & Wilde are good.
She cares so much she married me to protect the people who work there.
She lost her parents in one fell swoop. And now, in death by a thousand cuts, she has finally lost her uncle completely too.
No wonder she’s feeling a lot.
