She levels me with a knowing look. “Yeah, I’m sure you wanted a girlfriend tied to your hip when you were out partying and hooking up with celebrities and supermodels.”
“I won’t deny I enjoyed the trappings of fame, but it was all transitory. A blur of nameless faces and bodies.” Her mouth pulls into a grimace, but I’m not apologizing for my past. I was a red-blooded nineteen-year-old man when we hit it big. I was single and pining for the girl I lost. Doing everything I could to try to numb my heartache. I buried myself in drink, drugs, and pussy, but it never worked. “None of them were you.”
Finishing her omelet, she reaches for her OJ, and I watch her mind churning as she drinks. She swivels on her chair to face me. “Is that the truth? Were you really thinking of me?”
I nod. “Constantly. You’re embedded in here”—I tap my temple—“as much as you’re embedded in here.” I place a hand over my heart.
“Yet you never came for me.”
Shame surges in my veins. “I thought you betrayed me with Anvil, Syd. I thought you didn’t give a shit about me. I was hardly going to come chasing after you even if my heart couldn’t let go.”
Slowly, she nods. “Yeah, I get that, to a certain extent.” Her eyes pierce mine. “I never forgot you either, Jared,” she says in a raspy tone. “I tried really hard, but I couldn’t move on.”
Inside, I’m throwing a party. We have a mountain to climb, but knowing she still has feelings for me is what I’ve been hoping for. All would’ve been lost if she no longer cared, so this is huge. Momentous.
Taking a risk, I reach out and place my hand over hers on the table. She goes rigidly still. “We have lost so much time. I hate all the years we were apart, and I’m hoping we can make up for it now.”
Pulling her hand out from under mine, she looks down at her plate for a few seconds. I chew the last piece of omelet and spoon some fruit onto my plate, along with a croissant, while I wait her out.
“I can’t even consider that, let alone discuss it,” she finally says, lifting her head. “It’s been more than ten years, Jared, and you just broke up with someone you’ve been engaged to for two years. A woman you’re having a baby with. I really don’t see how there is any room for a discussion of us picking up where we left off.”
“I wasn’t engaged to her for two years,” I clarify after munching on a strawberry. “I only proposed when she told me she was pregnant. We were only engaged for three months. That’s it.”
“Don’t lie.” She glares at me. “I remember the magazine headlines when you got engaged. I’d only just gotten married, so I know exactly when it was. I was miserable already, and those headlines nearly pushed me over the edge.”
Acid crawls up my throat at her admission and my heart stops for a few beats. “You are married to that guy?” I choke out.
Her brows knit together. “What guy?”
“The prick in Italy,” I hiss.
“I’m not married to Gio. He’s only an ex-boyfriend. And for the record, he’s not a prick.” Relief sinks bone deep as she levels me with a scathing look.
“If not him, then who?”
“Sawyer Hunt.”
“Should I know who that is?”
Sydney dollops fruit onto her plate as she talks. “I forgot you’re no longer up to speed with New York life. Sawyer’s dad owns Techxet, a global billion-dollar tech company. Sawyer went to West Lorian too though he was a few years younger than us. He’s a tech genius in his own right, and he runs his own IT consultancy company now with his husband.”
“Husband?” Curiosity underscores my tone.
She sighs as she reaches for a croissant. “It’s complicated, and it doesn’t matter. The marriage didn’t last long, and it was annulled. It wasn’t real. Our fathers forced us into it.”
“What?” I almost fall off my chair. “What do you mean you wereforcedinto it?”
“I told you my father turned controlling. That was one aspect of it. He made me marry the son of the man he was entering into a merger with. It was that, or he was going to cut me off and kick me out with nothing.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Get in line.”
“I mean it, Syd. How did he even get you to agree?”
She pins me with a warning look. “I’ll tell you some other time. It’s not important. Your baby momma, on the other hand, is.”
To say I’m shocked would be an understatement. That I didn’t know isn’t surprising. I’m sure there must have been media coverage, but I wouldn’t have seen it. I was probably overseas touring at the time, and I’m not on social media. Our PR people handle our online presence, and I avoid reading headlines. I don’t even have any of the usual social media apps on my phone.
